


baby please come home

by ameliajessica



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: (A Very Late) Christmas Miracle, Fix-It, Getting Back Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Memory Loss (sort of), Post-Season/Series 04, hey eliot actually grieves the love of his life and guess what - gets him back!, timeline Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:14:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22686805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliajessica/pseuds/ameliajessica
Summary: "Christmas is the worst for it. For missing Q."Or: meditations on grief, New York, December, and, well, a bona fide Christmas Miracle.
Relationships: Eliot Waugh & Julia Wicker, Kady Orloff-Diaz/Julia Wicker, Margo Hanson & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater & Margo Hanson, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 81
Kudos: 335





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone.
> 
> this fic is... unbelievably late. it was supposed to be, as you may imagine, a christmas fic! but hey - do you know what time is unusually busy for a person?? christmas! who knew! if i hadn't put so much work into it, i maybe would have left it but not only that - i really, really pettily want to post a hand-wave, christmas-miracle, who-gives-a-shit-about-the-logistics fix-it happy ending, especially in light of *gestures* everything the show is doing right now. quentin coldwater lives, motherfuckers!!! 
> 
> anyway. i hope you enjoy.

It was funny. Eliot had never lived in New York with Quentin - not as himself anyway, even if his body had, technically - but nothing made Eliot miss him like New York did. Even Fillory, where he spent longer than he'd been alive loving Quentin, didn't make him ache with it in the same way. There was too much to do, too much falling apart around him.

There was a loneliness in New York. A keen awareness of just how many other lives there were around you, each other them occupied with their own thoughts and feelings and lost loves. Eliot had been one of them once, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and desperate to shape himself into something, someone could be interested in, even if for one night. One night was perfect for Eliot, once. One night had been perfect for Eliot for years.

New York was loud, but it was quiet when you were by yourself. You were left alone. It had been one of the first things Eliot had to shake from his Indiana system - the instinct to greet every person he saw, so fucking green. 

He'd never been too good at being alone. At being in his own head. He latched onto anything or anyone who could make it temporarily quiet. First it was Margo, who wanted to _go go go_ as much as he did in the world. Wanted to drink and snort and fuck anything he could put in or around his body to feel like he was alive, and not listening to the voices in his head. The ones that sounded like his father, his teachers, Logan fucking Kinnear. He taught those voices to be quiet with the drinking and snorting and fucking. He had thought maybe he'd given them what they wanted, that he was exactly as _fucking queer_ and depraved as they taunted him to be, and they'd never come after him again.

Then came Quentin Coldwater. Quentin Coldwater, with his soft voice and sad eyes, hands in his too-long sleeves, made everything in Eliot's head so damn loud. His heart was dragged, kicking and screaming, into a world of fondness and protectiveness and color. It was hard and real and nothing like the easy high of a cocktail, the simple pleasure of his cock in a mouth. Even when he had got the latter from Quentin, it was like a hive buzzing in his head, and it sounded exactly like the choked off moan he let out when he came – _Q._

Suddenly he had no interest in depravity. Only wanted to be _fucking queer_ if Quentin Coldwater was too - which, against all odds, he was. One night fucked on emotion magic and not at all sharing him with Margo had proved that. He-- he wanted Eliot, at least a little. It didn't matter, for a while, if all he was a warm body, a hard cock to Quentin. Eliot had been told over and over he was good at sex, after all, why shouldn't Quentin Coldwater reap the rewards of the expertise he'd built up?

And then came the fifty years. And then, so what if it was never just that to Eliot? So what if every single day, every single _night –_ every time he touched Eliot, or let Eliot reach for him – it grew and grew? Eliot fell deeper and deeper, knowing each time he was making a mistake, something he would never recover from; because who in their right mind could recover, could move on from something like Quentin Coldwater, _wanting_ you so much he was out of his mind with it? Wanting you so much for _years_ , and never wavering, just evolving, just _growing_? Eliot would dare anyone to resist it. Dare anyone to _not_ fall in love with the security and comfort that Quentin provided a person with. Like it was no problem for Eliot to love you, wholeheartedly, unabashedly, overwhelmingly. Like the boundless love pouring out of Quentin was something you deserved?

It became the foundation of his whole life, at the Mosaic. It was what made him a good father, what made him a good partner – knowing that his love and him were _welcome_. That it was _good_. It made him turn around, look at the rest of his life, and think, _God_ , how _sad_ it all was. How much he needed to _not_ be alone, and didn’t even know it, until Quentin and Teddy and the grandkids, all of his life filled with company and joy and pain and just love, just loving as much as he could, until he could hardly breathe with it, and at the center of it all, Quentin.

He wasn’t even afraid, for the back half of it. There was too much to be happy about. He only remembered to be afraid when they got back – that it had been so perfect, there was no way he could have it again without him ruining it, or it crumbling to shit, or him _losing_ it. The fear, in his young and stupid and raw body, took over every memory he had about how good it was, how he’d _earned_ it and kept it despite all odds, and he knew – he _knew_ that if he came even close to what they had, and it went away, that it would leave him wrecked, a shell. He’d done okay before, glass half-full, so why aim for the moon if he could just land on the stars? That was better than at least the confirmation that it had been a fluke – that would be better than glass half-empty, than utterly and completely devastated.

Well. He’d been right, hadn’t he?

*

Eliot had never lived in New York with Quentin, but he forgot that sometimes, because of how much Quentin had loved New York. It was the one thing, more than Brakebills, more than magic, that he would talk about as if they were either. New York, which Eliot had grown up as a sinful land of depraved queers, and when he got there learnt fairly quickly was just hot and cold in the extremes, crowded, and expensive. Nowhere near as tantalizing as his relatives made it seem, and nowhere the dreamscape the movies promised it would be.

Except for Quentin, who didn’t come from Indiana, and came from possibly the only place worse than Indiana: New Jersey.

(Privately, Eliot loved that Quentin was from New Jersey. It was… cute.)

But Quentin loved it. The grit, the grime, even fucking _Times Square_. He really was a Jersey boy, as much as he’d get haughty at the implication, insisting he was a New Yorker.

“You lived there during _undergrad_ , Q, and off student loans. I don’t think you quite had the grasp on the New York reality that you think you did.”

“You _also lived there during undergrad_ , you ass.”

“Yeah and I don’t call myself a _New Yorker_.” God, the very idea. How _tacky_. Like he carried tote bags, lived in _Williamsburg_ and had a verified Twitter account.

“What _would_ you call yourself then?”

“I—”

He _should_ have said some clever quip, something dismissive, something in the neighborhood of _well little Q, why ever deprive all the world of all of me_ or _why settle to belong to one thing_ but nothing comes to mind. It was what he _did_ , but fuck. 

Eliot wasn’t from fucking anywhere, was he? He wasn’t from Indiana, in that sense, _obviously_ ; he’d never be a New Yorker, God bless; and Fillory was in his blood, but they didn’t _want_ him. He didn’t have _home._ The closest he’d come to finding himself had been Brakebills, and Margo, but even then, that was shades of a performance. He was a scared little gay kid, waiting for the other shoe to drop and everyone figured out his schtick. Now Quentin was going to see it too, and Eliot didn’t want to play this game anymore, not with him. 

Bickering with Quentin could be like this: fun, until it wasn’t. They were too tired, there was too much at stake, and Eliot just fucking cared too much. About all of it, but especially Quentin. He wanted this to never be too hard for him, but it was getting hard to keep this fun and light and _yeah, Q, that’s the spirit, maybe the beauty of all life is a horse, let’s go for that, you beautiful non-artist_. 

(Quentin really was a crappy drawer. The horse was spectacularly bad — a crime against nature. It charmed Eliot to no end.)

And then Quentin, sweet Quentin, didn’t say anything in the silence Eliot left between them, but he held him. Or rather, made Eliot hold him, tucking himself against Eliot’s chest, head under chin.

It was so funny, the first few times he’d done it, way back in first year, Quentin had huffed and puffed, protesting that he wasn’t _a kid_ or _even that short_ , and Eliot kept doing it because it was so funny to watch him blush angrily at the attention, but always ended up surrendering to Eliot’s affections. It was a constant source of joy in Eliot’s days - that short period of time before the Beast, before he got Alice Quinn tunnel vision.

At most, he’d have to share Quentin with Margo, and she was nowhere near as interested, but even she was partial to how Quentin was so easy to rile up. They shared that, and gushed about it together often. Sometimes in front of Quentin, who would grumpily slam his book shut and storm upstairs, to their delight. A strange little triple act that Eliot missed with a pang, when he would look across the mosaic Quentin and see him entranced in his work. He wished Margo was there too, a lot, because Margo wasn’t chicken shit like Eliot was. Wouldn't just sit here, dying for his attention, mentally begging Quentin to look at him. Margo would have made some comment that made Quentin snap, and then Eliot would tell her to stop teasing the baby, and Quentin would snap some _more_. He knew that even if they solved the mosaic tonight, they wouldn’t ever have that again. It was already something to mourn by the time they got to this place. But Quentin let Eliot hold him now.

Against all odds, he was a lot more _zen_ now, even on this stupid quest, solving this inane mosaic. Was he just… used to it, or did he need the closeness too? The way Eliot always had, but was too scared to admit? The real reason he always grabbed an elbow, or a hip, or a hand. Why he tucked him into this very position Quentin had put himself in. Quentin was made Eliot-sized. It was a comfort to slot him into place.

Quentin turned his head to press his cheek against Eliot’s heartbeat, and while he wouldn’t dare think anything as saccharine (dangerous) as _you feel like home_ , in that moment, and later that night when they tangled together in the same way, holding Quentin to him, he thought, _well. This place is actually pretty nice._

*

Christmas is the worst for it. For missing Q.

They'd talked about Christmas once, in Fillory. The subject came up once Teddy was old enough to start asking about Earth, and their traditions, even though they'd tried to keep him as authentically Fillorian at first. There was too much fear about whether he'd go spilling Earth information to the neighbor's kids, start generating suspicion, and jeopardize the quest.

Eliot didn't really have a lot of things he'd experienced at Christmas that he had any interest in bringing into Teddy's life. Even the parts of it that weren't his father yelling abuse, or committing physical abuse, or just crappy presents that only had use for farm work. After all of that, all that was left was going to church, and subpar food. He told Quentin so dryly, with no desire to have a conversation about any of it, but of course Quentin's eyes opened wide, absolutely heartbroken for Eliot, like having shitty Christmases was anything close to the other bad shit he'd told Quentin about his life in Indiana (which, after eight or so years at the Mosaic, came up).

"Not even in New York?" Quentin said it with reverence. Eliot scoffed.

"Did we live in the same New York? The holidays are the worst."

"Are not!" Quentin said, as if he weren't closer to forty than he was to twenty, and in any case too old for _are not._

"Are too," Eliot said back, smiling, forgetting what they were even arguing about. He just loved Quentin this animated, this passionate about something and this dedicated to proving Eliot he was wrong. He loved how much Quentin took the bait, hook, line and sinker, and got exactly as agitated as Eliot intended for him to be.

(He also just loved him, but Quentin didn't know that yet. Eliot himself barely knew it. He let the thought travel through, sandwiched with _I love his energy_ , and let that skate close enough to the truth, and then away again.)

Quentin went on about the Christmas lights, the cookies and spices that got in season, going ice skating with his dad. It seemed all of it was associated with good memories of Ted Coldwater, and so Eliot backed down, accepted them as sacred memories, and worked his damn hardest to replicate as much of it for Quentin as much as he did for Teddy. It was strange, you would have thought Quentin would be prone and vulnerable to Seasonal Depressive Disorder as much as the rest of them, but he seemed to take comfort in the peace of the snowfall, the shorter days. And with Christmas back in his life, it made him come alive all the more, the way Quentin always did when there was a project to throw himself into.

Teddy only really responded to some of it - presents and cookies and lights - and Quentin tried to not be too heartbroken when he grew out of being interested in building or making model planes. Christmas started to fade - they'd never really known how to keep track of the dates and seasons anyway, much less when it was corresponding to Earth. Eventually Teddy was old enough for mulled cider and eggnog, and that was all that was left of their attempt at tradition. They gathered once a year, with the grandkids, when it snowed, to drink it together, and eat ginger cookies.

Eliot wonders now if Teddy kept it up, after they'd gone. The same way Quentin had missed Christmas even more when losing his dad was a closer and more likely possibility every day. Wonders if the grandkids liked building planes, or gingerbread, or lights. Wonders if Teddy taught them it all and said, "This is what they do when it snows, where my Dad and Papa came from." Maybe there was a long line of Fillorians out there who carried some of it on, to the confusion of their neighbors. Maybe they didn't even remember where it came from anymore.

It's easier to forget in Fillory, when it's Christmas. But Eliot isn't in Fillory, and all of New York reminds him of Quentin.

"Nothing in my life worked before," Quentin said to him once, and it startled Eliot, to hear his own words to Margo, once upon a time. When he had pledged his life to Fillory, in a desperate attempt to make it work. And it never did, not in the way he thought, until now. Eliot wasn't in the business of romanticizing previous life choices to make a narrative-like shape of his life - that was the job of the philosophy major currently pulled up to his chest - but it did feel a little... strange. Serendipitous. Like life can work out in ways you can't anticipate. That he would give himself to Fillory, which in turn would give him... _this_ , when he hadn't had the words to ask for it first.

"Sometimes," Quentin said, curling up against Eliot. The words pressed to his sleep shirt, which couldn't smell good, Eliot cast his mind back to the last time they took their clothes down to the river to wash them - maybe a week ago? - and felt self-conscious. Almost stopped Quentin, out of a kindness for his precious nostrils, but he couldn't have - Quentin was burrowing himself like he wanted to dig into Eliot's chest, like that was the safest place for him and his soft, uncertain voice, and the words it was saying. "Sometimes I hope we never solve it. That we just get... this. That we never leave."

 _We shouldn't have_ , Eliot thinks now, as commuters push past him, the subway floor wet and filthy and his scarf choking him, going nowhere except _out_ , anywhere. _We shouldn't have._

*

Their little penthouse family is kind of in shambles, so Christmas and any celebrations therein are touch-and-go for a while. It’s Kady’s place, very technically, but she’s Jewish, so Julia takes it upon herself to decorate, steadfast in that she will _not_ be joining her family when Eliot asks, vaguely aware of Quentin once mentioning a sister and that they were close, as kids. He supposes that was before, and doesn’t push it, but he is curious about how she grew up, again from Quentin’s stories. She had the kind of upbringing he outright told people he’d had, still kind wishes he did. Call it a morbid fascination, but he did want to know how wealth turned out a girl who was so gentle and strong and kind, all at once. The more he spends time with her – which, surprisingly, they do a lot of, now – the more he understands why Q was so in love with her, for long.

Speaking of, Alice has shut down harder than Eliot, throwing herself into work with the Library. He hasn’t really seen her, which is probably for the best. What exactly are they supposed to say to each other? There is a way in which they’re probably the only to understand what the other is going through – but that thought only lasts a second, because once Eliot thinks about it even a little… of Alice Quinn, looking him in his haggard, tired face and telling him she _gets it,_ makes his blood boil and a string of curses come to mind, so creative that they surprises him. Besides, he has no idea what Alice knows, what Quentin told her, and it definitely won’t help her now to know _hey, actually your twice-ex-and-now-dead-boyfriend and I were actually co-parents at one point, for roughly half a century in fact -- wanna go over that or how he cheated on you with me first, though?_

(Even if, yeah, there’d be sick pleasure to that. One Quentin probably wouldn’t appreciate, though it would feed Eliot’s possessive streak, which has been very hungry.)

So yeah. For the best. Knowing Alice Quinn, the reason they don’t see each other is likely entirely on purpose.

One day he comes home and the whole place is decked out, boughs of holly. He’d been out in the world, so the time of year doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to see, but it _is_ to see it make its way into the place he crawls into at the end of the day. But there it is, all in one day, _bam –_ Christmas!

The penthouse isn’t… home. He’s had a shade of home now, so he knows the difference and knows even the Cottage wasn’t really that, not really, but the penthouse is… sanctuary. It’s quiet. It’s mostly him and Julia, with an occasional 23 cameo. They don’t _talk,_ so much, but they don’t need to. The understanding is unspoken. They’re there for each other, silently and unconditionally.

At first he’s heartbroken all over again, looking around at the lights and the silver snowflakes and remembering Quentin, hunched over with Teddy and teaching him how to cut them out of paper, or carving angels out of wood (Teddy finding the idea of angels confusing and then scary). It hurts, familiar by now, but also brand new, like it is each time. Each time is the same and different. 

Then he’s angry. He’s furious. At Julia, at Quentin, at Santa-fucking-Claus (real or otherwise). But mostly Julia, because he thought she fucking _got_ it, that he could count on at least _one_ fucking person to let him grieve in peace. If she knows about them and knows about Quentin and Christmas, then she knows that Eliot can’t _live_ like this.

He throws his keys down into the little ceramic bowl, storming through the kitchen for a drink, anything, but because the penthouse doesn’t have any _walls_ (at least, downstairs), just as he’s about to down a shot of vodka, drink red wine straight from the bottle, he looks across and sees Julia. Watches her tenderness as she puts the final touches on the tree. The nakedly vulnerable face she’s wearing, like she’s being held together only with the focus of decorating it, this one thing she can put her whole mind to.

Julia turns, meets his eyes and everything falls away.

_“I know, I know it’s supposed to be… harder, during the holidays, it is for so many people but I’ve always sort of… liked it. The cold. The tacky decorations. Everything’s a bit… quieter.” Teddy was asleep. They’d charmed the surrounding air to be chilly, but not biting. And just to be sure, the two of them huddled close. “There’s less pressure, because the year’s nearly done, so I didn’t have to think too much about how much I hated myself and how I could hate myself less. I just needed to make it for the coming four weeks. Make the most of those. Just me and Julia and my dad, playing boardgames or whatever. It made it all feel... easier.”_

_Eliot couldn’t relate. Christmas was an ordeal in the Waugh household, and with the state of the roads he was left stranded on the farm, not even able to drive to the nearest town. The food sucked, the presents sucked, his family sucked worst of all and there was_ more _of them at Christmas. It was the only time he wished he was back at school._

_By all accounts, it would have made complete sense for Quentin to hate Christmas too. Like he’d said, it wasn’t exactly a favorite among those with his brain chemistry. But by all those same accounts, it wouldn’t have made sense for Quentin to be here, his head in Eliot’s lap and playing idly and yet with infinite tenderness with Eliot’s fingers; wouldn’t have made sense for Quentin to have kissed him first, right on the spot they were now; for Quentin to have sat himself in Eliot’s arms, in Margo’s room, and put Eliot’s hand on his own neck to show Eliot how he liked to be kissed._

_Just when he thought he’d unraveled all of Quentin Coldwater – learnt every edge, every curve and groove – there was more for Eliot to be surprised by. Eliot liked to have a handle on things, but never minded that Quentin kept him on his toes,_ just _enough, because it never felt like he was losing balance, unstable. It was just more of_

_This piece of information – Quentin’s tender love of Christmas – was offered as something shy, vulnerable. Like Eliot might make fun of him, or think he was silly. And he did. He thought Quentin so endlessly silly, so much that Eliot wanted to lie down and do nothing else but bask in it, all day. He was silly and sweet and gentle and kind. Eliot wanted to give him everything, everything he wanted._

_So that was why they decided to try that first year that Teddy would have been old enough to really remember it. Going as all out as they could, without most of the traditional imagery and ingredients. They talked through what would be possible, and what they could let go of._

_“Hey,” Eliot said. He stopped Quentin the doorway. Teddy was playing with his toys on the floor. Quentin looked up. Eliot had his arm raised, hand poised like he was holding something above him._

_“What? What’s that?” Quentin nodded his head towards it._ _Quentin was silly and sweet and gentle and kind. Eliot wanted to give him everything he wanted. So maybe he was allowed to be a little silly too._

_“Imaginary mistletoe.” Eliot’s heart pounded._

_Quentin smiled - and oh, Quentin’s_ smile _. It never got less bright, so it never got old. Neither did that look of combined surprise and wonder, like he couldn’t believe Eliot kept indulging him. Like indulging him hadn’t been Eliot’s life purpose since the moment they met._

_Eliot wanted to give him everything he wanted._

_“Does that mean I get an imaginary kiss?” Oh, he thought he was so clever. Eliot would show him._

_“Sure,” Eliot drawled, leaning in. He’d meant to tease him. To lean in close enough for their lips to_ just _about brush, and then pull away. Just enough to raise a reaction out of Quentin; one that he could spend hours drawing out later in bed. A true “imaginary kiss”._

_But it was pretty hard to resist Quentin. Too hard, in fact. Once Quentin’s gaze flicked down, expectant and hopeful, to Eliot’s mouth - Quentin’s own parted as his breath came shorter, Eliot was a goner. Quentin wanted to be kissed so bad. And-- well. Everything he wanted..._

_“You, mm,” Quentin said, pulling away and licking his lips, like he was chasing the taste, and making Eliot feel like a feral caveman at the sight, “you have a great imagination.”_

_Jesus._

_Smartass. Sap. The absolute best thing in Eliot’s life, other than the little boy making crashing noises with his wooden animals, across the floor. The one squealing in disgust when Eliot tilted Quentin's head and kissed him deeper, drawing a helpless, startled noise from him. Teddy had padded over, pulling at their pants until they split apart, laughing, and answered his demand for their attention on him._

There’s a long silence. He has no idea what to say to her. Everything he had wanted to say was gone.

“He would have hated this.”

Julia’s brow furrows, sad and confused and a little annoyed. Yeah—Eliot knows how that feels. It’s what his stomach does every morning, when he sits up and remembers his life. Remembers who's gone.

“The—big ornaments, at the top. Q liked them in size order, getting bigger on the way down.”

“God, you’re right,” Julia laughed, a little choked. And surprised, the way she did when she got an insight into how well Eliot knew Quentin too. That it wasn’t just her, carrying all these little details and tidbits around with her. “He could be such a control freak.”

“The worst,” Eliot agrees, and they laugh, carefree, and it feels like Quentin has just gone out of the room, and is going to walk back in any moment, and huffily explain his reasoning to them both. Eliot can just see it, even if, he’s never spent a Christmas with Quentin and Julia. He can’t even remember the last time, before this, that he spent any time with Julia at all. But it feels--

It feels too much like the life he would have had, if things had just... if _he_ had...

Well.

“I wanted to put lights against the windows,” Julia says, “but there’s nowhere to… hang them. There’s not even any curtain rods.”

Eliot nods. The penthouse’s windows are glossy and huge, glass from floor to ceiling. He twists his hands in the right tuts, and a string of sparkles line up against the top of the windows, falling down and fading like snow. Julia watches, stunned.

“He would have loved this,” she tells him, more breathless than sad.

“He did,” he says, remembering, and Julia looks at him, but doesn’t ask any more. He thinks about offering, but she just smiles, like she understands that he can't.

Julia’s face is shiny in the glow, still drying off tears, but Eliot doesn’t say anything. Just puts an arm around her shoulders, and watches them twinkle.

*

He does try to fuck someone, once.

It’s when it’s still recent, still raw – missing Quentin felt less like the dull migraine it is now and more like a slash through his stomach (hey, he even got one of those). He can’t eat, he can’t sleep, he can’t get out of bed. Most of that time is forgotten to him, after, gone in a haze.

But when he has the energy to do any of the above, he gets all the way dressed, somehow. Takes time primping and twisting his hair, smudging his eyeliner just so, even as his hands tremble.

None of it looks… right, but rather than start over, agonize over each outfit combination, he just… leaves. Throws on a jacket, grabs his keys and starts walking.

Eliot walks. And walks. Down the street for blocks and blocks, into the first gay club he finds.

He’s already buzzed by the time he’s inside, taking intermittent sips from his flask, but hey, if blond cutie with the cheekbones wants to buy him some more, who is Eliot to stop him?

They go back to his apartment, not Eliot’s – though by that point Eliot is so out of it, he could be in an unrelated secondary location, but blondie is still there, so that’s the conclusion he comes to. The undressing takes a while, clumsy but in a way that’s familiar, that tugs at Eliot, like an old friend he’d lost touch with and who he suddenly remembers he used to adore. God, it was good—first times could be so fucking good, couldn’t they? Why had he forgotten that? Why had he changed his mind?

The answer comes to him as he slides his hand up to the guy’s wrists, to hold them together above his head, the other on his cock (not too big, not too small; Eliot’s favorite). It’s a wordless action, Eliot doesn’t check with him first at all, but the guy is on board, immediately going pliant in Eliot’s grip. And _that_ ’s when it hits him.

He’s going through the motions of what he’d do with Quentin, without even meaning to. Sex with Quentin is just… _sex_ to Eliot, now. He did it this specific way, countless times. Grief runs through him, burning like cheap whisky.

It would have maybe been fine, the guy is into it, but it’s all _wrong_. As in, blondie is doing it _wrong_. He’s not squirming in the grip, halfway between trying to get away and teasing the restraint, while also shuddering with how much he _needs_ one; he’s not moaning, soft and honest, instead just panting, hard; he doesn’t meet Eliot’s gaze, heady and needy and like he can’t get enough of Eliot watching him, like knowing what he’s doing to Eliot is half of what’s doing it for _him_. He just closes his eyes in bliss. He’s not _Quentin_.

And then grief isn’t a hot flash of a thing. It’s a cold shower. Eliot’s hands _hurt_ where he’s touching – Jason, he remember suddenly. This guy’s name is Jason. Shaking, Eliot pulls out, probably mumbles an apology that doesn’t make sense, and is back at the penthouse with no knowledge of how he managed it.

He sits on his bed. A bed he’s never shared with Quentin, and he never will. Quentin is dead. Quentin is _dead_. Eliot’s heart is being pushed through a meat grinder. Is a shattered glass on the floor. It had finally started working, he’d finally figured out how to use it – he was _going to be brave_ – but now it was useless, broken beyond repair. No way to mend it.

He thinks about drinking. He thinks about drugs. He holds a cigarette and looks at it for a long time but flicks it on the floor. Nothing about his life makes sense. Everything he thought he’d known about the world, that made him feel like _him,_ is different now. It strikes him that it will be forever. He has to learn to be a new person, now, just like he did when he first got to New York. Except that had been a choice. Scary, but exciting too. Now it’s just exhausting.

Eliot feels so old. He _is_ so old. His mind is. His mind is old but it _remembers_.

He’d had it perfect, before. He lived his bliss, got to kiss his grandkids on the head every few weeks and fuck Quentin every which way they could figure out how and on top of all that – and crucially – _went out first_ , and never had to feel any of this.

Man, that must have pissed Quentin off _so much_. He must have been _furious_ with Eliot. For leaving him. For being selfish. But Eliot would do it again, if it he could. He'd go first, again.

 _We never talked about it, why did we never talk about it?_ Eliot thinks it, fierce. Angry at himself, then at Quentin, for the first time. For letting Eliot be a coward, sat in the throne room. For _leaving_ Eliot, when he knew that Eliot isn’t strong enough. For being a fucking _hero_ for this garbage world that didn’t deserve it.

Maybe this was Quentin’s revenge. Maybe this was the universe saying, _hey, you got lucky once, but don’t push it_. Maybe it was a god, maybe it was some shade of the Monster, still pissed that Eliot fucked up some grand master plan. 

But maybe Quentin was never his. Maybe he’s not the one entitled to mourning him. That’s Alice, isn’t it? And how much more productive she’s being about it, fighting to make the world a better place than how Quentin left it. She’s not fucking strangers - he assumes, anyway - and getting maudlin about _Christmas_ , of all fucking things. Listening to sad Christmas pop songs like they understand him; aching with _feeling_ , listening to singers croon about their ‘ _baby_ ’s and thinking about the boy whom he called 'baby', once and a million times before, in a timeline that never even happened, in a life that wasn't real.

He thinks about jacking off, but even touching his own skin turns his stomach.

He’d done so much fucking in his life, more than his fill, and it never brought him much good - well, maybe once. With one person.

So that’s that. 

“And so my Watch begins,” he says later, to Margo, when he tells her about the Jason encounter. He means for it to be funny – the story and the reference. Figured she’d like it, even if the final season is a sore subject (the outraged cry of, “ _I bother to catch up for_ this?” could have been heard throughout Manhattan). Because hey, shitty lays, that’s a normal person thing, right? He’s doing a normal person thing, isn’t that great? Relatable King, Eliot Waugh?

She purses her lips, but doesn’t say anything. Knowing her, she either doesn’t believe him, or doesn’t approve—but knows better than to fight him on it, at least.

“Oh, lighten up, beloved,” he says, even though, of course, he’d only been half-joking. Not joking at all, really. 

He doesn’t go out to clubs again. He doesn't seek anyone out.

He doesn’t miss it.

*

During the Mosaic, Eliot loved Quentin so much he thought if he lost it, if anything happened to him, he’d just die. There. On the spot. No fanfare or fuss. Just something the universe would arrange for him. Like, _oh, you’re not supposed to be here anymore, not if he isn’t. We’ll fix that now._ He’d even been lucky, during the Mosaic. It was almost like he’d subconsciously manifested his own demise. 

That was the worst part. That Eliot didn’t die. Sometimes he couldn’t fucking believe it - waking up and remembering that Q was gone, the way he did, first thing, and then having to go to Trader Fucking Joe’s like everything was normal. Like, the most fucking unbelievable thing Eliot has ever faced in whole life. Completely relentless. Quentin is dead but he still needs to buy more toothpaste. 

“I can’t believe I’m alive,” he says, of all goddamn people, to Penny-23. 

“Yeah,” Penny says, probably thinking about how Eliot was kind of dead for a while. 

“No,” Eliot says. “Like, I can’t believe it hasn’t killed me. Missing him this much. It—it feels like it should. Sometimes it feels like I have. It’s ridiculous. I feel-- I feel _insane_.” 

He’s on the edge of furious too, suddenly and fiercely. Like, how is he supposed to _do this_? He’s just going to do shit like watch movies on a Sunday afternoon—for the rest of his life? Like there’s nothing fucking missing? Like he wouldn’t give absolutely anything, magic, his own goddamn—

“I know,” Penny says, voice low and oh, Eliot looks at him. Oh yeah. He does know. They don’t talk anymore after that but… watching _Die Hard_ feels oddly comforting, then. Eliot is glad, absently, for the company. 

*

Christmas Eve comes around, and Eliot notices, despite his best efforts.

He opts to take it easy and spends the evening with Julia, curled up together watching Christmas specials until she pads off to sleep, where 23 had headed long before. She gives him a sleepy kiss on the cheek as she pushes off the couch and Eliot’s heart actually skips a little, so touched and surprised he is. 

She’s so… well, not _like_ Q, not quite, but he can’t quite believe the way she cares about him so easily, like fitting him into her rolodex of People Julia Wicker Looks After is no trouble at all. He knows it’s for Quentin - or rather, to honor him. They both know that Quentin, if he’d had the chance, the _time,_ would have asked Julia to keep an eye on Eliot. 

Eliot _knows_ that. 

But the attention is still pretty nice.

And he doesn’t think Quentin would have asked the same of him, for Julia but Eliot always loved surprising Quentin. He can't bring himself to ask, but he hopes she feels looked after too. He _is_ trying.

Her hands are soft around his face, her eyes shiny. “Don’t stay up too late,” she says, sounding like there’s more she’s leaving out. 

He covers his hands with hers. “I won’t.”

He’s thinking he’ll even keep his promise, so as to not worry her. The ideal would be to look after himself for his own sake, and not for others, but hey. Eliot’s getting there. 

The apartment is quiet once she’s gone, and he can’t help but cast his mind to what her and Penny’s room looks like. He’s had plenty of evenings that he ended with him crawling into a bed, a warm body reaching for him to come closer. Sleepy mumblings - checking in, simple _everything okay?,_ because maybe Teddy had had a nightmare, or was especially restless and needed more than one lullaby. Times when you ask _everything okay?_ without much fuss, because you know everything is, because what could possibly be wrong when the rest of your life is so good, so perfect? When you hush the other person and settle in bed together, in whatever position is most comfortable before you're both out again. It's an unreachable, private intimacy - forgotten in the light of day but vital all the same. A circle of love and domesticity he misses so much he hurts.

Compared to days, weeks, months ago, Eliot is okay. Really. On the mend, in his own way. He's here, isn't he? Fulfilling his requirements of eating, breathing, bathing.

And he knows he doesn't... deserve much. Has made the bed he's lying in, or something like that. It's not about what he wants - or needs to be happy. _He_ shot the Monster, and _he_ turned Quentin down in that throne room. Besides, he had happy. Had more happy than most people get - more than fucking Alice Quinn, that's for sure. Asking for any more would be selfish.

And Eliot? Is so fucking selfish.

So he doesn't something he hasn't done in years.

He--

\--prays.

He forgoes the Lord's prayer. He said it over and over in his young life, for a variety of reasons. Well, the queer kid classics - nothing very creative of him. And it never did him any good.

He makes his own prayer. 

"If there is any way, Quentin." Speaking directly feels right. Why add middle men? "Baby. Q. I'll do _anything_. Anything at all. If you can-- just come... back. Please."

Answering silence - but it's loaded. Like a spell is cast over the space; an unnatural stillness. Eliot, for reasons that escape him, holds his breath, afraid of breaking it - whatever _it_ is.

Then one of the electronics in the kitchen chirps at him. Midnight.

It's Christmas.

Eliot sighs. He goes through the motions of his sleep routine, then folds himself under the covers, and drifts off...

...and wakes up to the sound of Julia screaming.

It's not dark anymore, he's slept for hours, apparently, but the noise jolts him awake and it feels like he's only shut his eyes for a second. He rushes out of his room, panicked and prepared to fight if he has to, even if that's not how he expected to spend his Christmas morning. He figured he'd at least get a few pancakes in him before mortal danger arrived as an uninvited guest.

He's barely managing to close his robe as he stumbles to the living room. "Julia, are you okay? What's going--"

Nothing, it seems, is going according to Eliot's plan. Alice is here, for one, standing over Julia, who is on her knees at the Christmas tree they set up.

And in her arms, tight, tight, _tight_ is Quentin. And her screaming isn't so much screaming as it is laughing and crying at once, a pained and relieved gasping for air. Alice holds herself up stiffly when she spots him, but stays silent. Quentin's face is in Julia's shoulder and Eliot is dying, dying, he must be, until Quentin unscrews his eyes and looks right at him.

“ _Eliot_ ,” Quentin says, gasping, and _oh_ , that sound is stitched into Eliot’s brain – that very hitch of breath, that way Quentin had of saying his name. A million neurons switch on at once in Eliot's brain, bright and flaring and _alive_ again.

Quentin stands.

Then he's not so much hugging Eliot as much as he’s just pressing himself to him, hands clutching Eliot’s lapels. “Thank _God_.”

Eliot...

Eliot's knees stop working. He all but collapses forward, hunched over Quentin, who keeps holding him in tight relief. Like Eliot is the one anchor, his one concern.

Eliot had dreamed of this. Of what he'd say, all the pretty words to beg for forgiveness he could think of in one speech. They all flee his mind. Because of all the things he'd been expecting _Quentin_ to say, what comes out is nothing remotely close.

Quentin pulls back slightly, tucking his hair behind his ears. He keeps feeling across Eliot's chest, the traces of it warm and painful and _Quentin_. Eliot almost passes out. But Quentin looks up at him, brow furrowed. “Eliot? What’s happening? Did we solve the Mosaic?”

What?

“The… Mosaic?” Eliot cups his face, now not giving a shit that Alice is watching. “Q, are you… okay?”

“I’m fine, I think. I just—have no idea what’s going on,” he says with a laugh, but doesn't sound too worried. Fits his face more firmly in Eliot's hold. “Last I remember I was getting out of bed to meet you outside and then I walked out of the shack and into the Library, and then Alice and Penny brought me… here. Where _are_ we?”

Eliot does look at Alice then. He tries for intimidating, _kingly_ and Alice steels herself, so it must work, but Quentin sees something else, because he pulls Eliot’s face back down to his. He sees Alice react to that too, the carefully-placed distant expression.

“Hey,” Quentin says, trying for a smile. For Eliot. “I’m good, I promise. At least, I feel okay? Just tired, I guess.”

As he says it, it falls over him like a spell, and he sways a little in Eliot’s arms. Eliot panics, arms circling his shoulders and waist. Quentin protests, says he's fine, _he's fine,_ but he presses forward into Eliot anyway. The sound is muffled to Eliot's shoulder, but it's unmistakably drowsy.

“We should get you to bed,” he says, hand across Quentin’s back. He looks to Julia, who nods. Eliot bends down and slips one arm under Quentin’s legs to scoop him up, calling for telekinesis to help him out because his body still sucks. He mumbles his protestations along the way, but lets himself be carried, mouth on Eliot’s collarbone and hand curled against the base of Eliot’s throat.

He puts Quentin gently down on the bed – Julia’s bed. It’s the closer bedroom. Julia immediately puts herself next to him, brushing his hair away from his falling-shut eyes, face nakedly reverent. Alice hasn’t said a word, just stands in the doorway awkwardly, watching them all.

“Wait, El, are you leaving?” he says and oh, oh Eliot could die, just hearing that sad confusion in his voice.

“Just for a bit,” Eliot says, trying for a smile. “I need to just speak with Alice for a second.”

Alice tenses behind him. Eliot isn’t even looking at her, really, but he hears her sharp inhale. Quentin is only looking at Eliot. He looks so small amidst Julia’s many pillows, hair fanning out against them. His hair is long. Eliot hasn’t noticed until now. He hadn’t seen post-haircut Quentin, other than the moment in the park, but he’d held onto that last image of him so dearly that it manages to be striking enough to see his old hair back. 

“Then you’ll come back?” he says, eyes wide now. Eliot just about doesn’t fall to his knees and crawl over to him.

“I’ll come back,” he promises and Quentin nods, a little reluctant, but closes his eyes again, body sighing like just that moment had been too exerting for him. 

It’s a little worrying. This whole moment is so… confusing, emotionally. Eliot’s so relieved and scared all in one. Eliot looks at Julia again, next to Quentin on the bed. Feels oddly glad that she’s here – that they have each other. Maybe she feels the same way, because she smiles up at him, a little weakly. Quentin’s hand is in hers. Eliot walks over, kissing her head, feeling her sigh shakily and cling to Eliot, her other hand coming up to hook around his forearm. Eliot looks at Quentin and just… breathes. He slows his breaths to Quentin’s, who is sound, sound asleep. Eliot watched that beautiful peace take over Quentin’s face for decades. It realigns the whole world. He has purpose again.

Purpose, but a whole lot of fucking questions.

When he closes the door behind him, Alice is there. She jumps a little when he turns to her, but her steely gaze meets his, her chin tilted up proudly.

“Talk,” says Eliot.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That was the beauty of Quentin: the maybe. The faith he had in things. In you, once he chose to, and how unshakable it was if he did. Eliot could have spent his whole life content with just… chasing that feeling, of living up to Quentin Coldwater’s expectations.
> 
> So. Here’s the thing about getting that Quentin back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. here's the thing folks. 
> 
> this absolutely was not supposed to take over a month to finish. but, in between my normal stress levels keeping me from writing, the world, uh, fell apart? and this baby, as i worked on it to keep from thinking about that, kept getting longer and longer and i kept debating--do i post it now in the new two parts? do i wait until it's all done? 
> 
> in the end, i kind of did both. part 3 is practically done but, sue me, i couldn't wait anymore to share what i had. i promise PROMISE it won't take as long for part 3, but thanks for being patient. i hope everyone is well.
> 
> thank you to liz and nicole for demanding excerpts when i was convinced i'd actually written over 30k of garbage (OH YEAH. WAIT FOR IT). and to chelsea, for the same, except she barely knows who these fictional people are. love to all my girls

“What did you do?”

Alice scoffs. “What makes you think _I_ did something?”

“Logical conclusions,” he says flatly, “based on past experiences and observed behavioral patterns.”

Alice purses her lips, but doesn’t say anything more.

“Yeah that’s what I thought.”

“Well I _didn’t,_ okay. Not that I—I looked into it, obviously, but every book in existence—which I have access to now, you know, makes it pretty clear that once he crosses over, that Quentin is gone. I gave up, Eliot. I was moving on. I was doing _work—_ work Quentin would have been…” Her voice catches. “He would have been proud of me, I think. And that felt good. To be doing something. It was—fine. I was… managing.”

“And…” Eliot says. Not needing the reminder that Alice is a better, more productive griever. Doesn’t need the widow contest—he knows he fucking loses.

“I’m getting to it!”

She pushes up her glasses. “I’m still low-rung. It’s actually pretty insulting considering—like—I could be doing _so_ much more, but likeI said, it’s whatever, I’m happy to be busy. So I have, basically, Penny’s old job. I’m mostly just putting back books and keeping an eye on them. It’s—my days all kind of look the same. But last night…”

Alice looks at him, eyes clear and… afraid. “I walked past his book—just. Just by accident. Or like, not to check up on it on anything, it was just what I was doing and…”

“ _And_?” says Eliot, because he would be reading that fucking book every night if he could, but of course noble, noble Alice doesn’t touch it.

“His book just started… freaking out.” She paused, clenching her hands in the space between them, lost in thought.

“More words, Alice. Freaking out _how_?”

“It—tumbled off the shelf, all by itself, and then just new pages started coming in. At the back, and all of them blank. Then I flicked through to the last entry—to see if… If…”

Alice hugs herself and Eliot, god-fucking-damn his stupid, bleeding heart, actually feels terrible. That he’s being short with her, that this is happening to her. That she was there when it happened, and had to watch. Alice Quinn fucked things up for him, for the world, constantly. But unlike him, she rarely did it to actually hurt anyone. And still she got hurt, all the time. She had to _watch_. Eliot—probably wouldn’t be around, if that was something imprinted in his brain forever, but she’s walking around with it.

“Anyway. That part was the same but there was one more. Like, it wasn’t the last part anymore. The next part was… what I was doing. Like I was in it, and then, it said that Q was standing next to me and… there he was. But he didn’t look like he did when he… he looked like he did before. Like way before, when we were looking for the keys.”

“But _how_?” Eliot asks desperately, because he wants this to be… real. He—if this was a Golem, or Quentin from another timeline, or anything other than real-fucking-deal, Quentin back to life, Eliot won’t be able to take it.

Alice shakes her head. “I have… no idea. And neither did he, or Penny, and we didn’t exactly want to be too loud about it because even though we’re working on making the Library less… like it is, you still don’t know if some higher power is going to tell you to undo something. And it was him, really him, even if there was no explanation in his book for it.”

She pauses.

“So I… read yours. And I read about… last night. What you said.”

“That’s—” Eliot feels… _mortified_ , of all things, which is ridiculous. He feels mortified about feeling mortified, but it makes him feel naked, to know Alice Quinn read some passage about his life. About missing Quentin so much he _prayed_ for it. It’s a small comfort that she looks uncomfortable at having done so. But then he gets to her argument. “You’re saying _I_ did this?” 

“I don’t know!” she says sharply. “But it’s real, Eliot. It’s in the pages now. This is part of Quentin’s story, for better or worse. He’s _back,_ actually back. I thought you’d be a lot happier about this, but you look worse than me.”

Eliot frowns. “I—you. I thought, before he… that you two…”

Alice looks away. Again, Eliot feels a stupid, useless pang of sympathy. “Yeah we—look, I was a mess. So was he. I don’t know what we were doing, or what could have happened if he hadn’t— but—look, it doesn’t matter now.”

“It doesn’t _matter_ ?” Never mind, Eliot is furious again. “Alice—Q is _back_ . He died, and he’s _back_. You’re just—you’re just going to let him go because he didn’t come back… right?”

Quentin loved her, even at the very end, even after _years_ of being apart. Jesus. Eliot would have—the things Eliot would have done so that Quentin would—

“No! That’s not it, obviously, Eliot, _God_.”

“Then what?”

She meets his eyes. “He’s not… _my_ Q, Eliot,” she whispers, brokenly. _Pointedly_. Eliot blinks, taking a moment to figure out her point.

“You think he’s _mine?_ ” Eliot wheezes, genuinely, a little hysterical at the idea. Since fucking when has Quentin _not_ being throwing himself into Alice’s Quinn’s arms in lieu of Eliot’s? Since that fucking disaster in Margo’s room, or arguably before.

“He…” Alice’s voice is soft, quiet. “He never told me what happened… about the quest. The ‘Mosaic’, he said? Just now? I always—I wondered. Because you always _loved_ him but when you shot the Monster for him, that felt… different. Like something had changed. And then when the Monster was… when he was fighting to get you back, _that_ felt different too, even though he’d always do anything for you. And you guys never really talked about the quest, so I never really got what changed but…”

She tilts her head at him. “That’s when it… happened, right? On the quest? Between you two.”

Eliot thinks of Quentin, sat on the quilt, being the one brave enough to make the first move, even though Eliot had been thinking about it since he first watched Quentin take his shirt off in front of him, startled by the reaction he had in his chest – that old twist of longing he thought he’d put away for good, only this time it came with gladness. And that longing and gladness growing and growing, even when Arielle came along, and then was gone, the only thing left of her in the world being Teddy’s bright head of hair. That feeling got – nurtured, sheltered, held close at night. None of what happened on the Mosaic was new, for Eliot. It was just given time to exist, space to take up, and he was helpless to keep it at bay. Every day where it was just Quentin and Teddy as Eliot’s whole world, was another day that Eliot would fall deeper.

Alice is looking at him, waiting for an answer. God, he’d thought about this. He’d _wanted_ to throw it right into her righteous, mathematically perfect face. _He was_ mine, he’d dreamed of gloating. _He was mine and he was happy and_ I _made him happy,_ me _._ He’d looked forward to the opportunity. He’d recount all the ways he’d held Quentin down, or held him to him and made him scream—even away from him, sometimes, just to watch Quentin’s hands stretch out, aching to be close. It had been _Eliot_ who had loved Quentin right. He’d learned exactly how, and he’d fucking _excelled_ , no-one could take that from him, fucking _ever_. Not even the girl he’d left behind, now standing in front of Eliot. The one Eliot had fought so hard to be a worthy replacement for. The mythic Alice Quinn.

Why does it feel like it wouldn’t be satisfying, at all, to say any of that now?

“Yeah,” he says instead. “We, uh—the quest. It was like, this… other life. It took 50 years. And Margo stopped it from happening but we still— _I_ still remember it, in bits and pieces.”

Alice narrows her eyes, like she knows he’s leaving details out. Like she knows exactly what the fucking details are, and Eliot… he’s too proud to actually feel his face and check, but he thinks he might be blushing. 

“Can we—restore his memories? Somehow?”

Alice chews her lip. “I have… no idea. I can look into it, I guess. But I don’t think there’s any precedent for this happening. I think—I don’t know how, but okay, I think that’s it. What you said, and why that’s the Quentin we got back. I guess because there’s—all the other Quentin’s died, there’s no bodies for them, even if he wanted to come back so… you called for this one. From the Mosaic. He’s the only one that time or death can’t touch, because he wasn’t really real.” 

Eliot’s heart is pounding. “I didn’t—I didn’t _call_ for anything.”

“You called for _him_ , Eliot. And the universe, magic, whatever it was—gave you the only one it could. If I were you, I’d take the Christmas miracle and run with it.”

This is him, finally winning. As she said, if this Quentin is anyone’s, he’s Eliot’s. This is what he wanted.

This is what he _wanted_.

He looks at her helplessly.

“But…”

Why does he feel… sick?

“Merry Christmas Eliot,” she says, with shocking kindness, and it’s the last thing she says before she leaves.

*

They find out exactly how long into the quest this Quentin is—was, the next morning. Because they ask him.

“Two and a half years,” he says around a piece of toast. There are crumbs on his cheek. “ _Fuck_ , El, was normal bread always this good? Or was I just bad at baking bread?”

He was. He was and Eliot never had the heart to tell him. Mostly because—it didn’t matter, Eliot was fed more by the idea that Quentin’s sat and made something with his hands so that Eliot could eat it. Labored over it, with all the gentleness he couldn’t help but pour into it, the way he did everything. Even the slotting in the tiles, on his worst days, was done with begrudging consideration.

He got better, over time, though of course… Eliot can’t really tell him that either. So he just says, “I loved your bread.”

“And butter,” Q is saying, barely paying attention, “is so good? Fuck. I love butter. I’m only gonna… eat butter, I think, for the rest of my life.”

 _You’re perfect_ , Eliot thinks, helpless. He’s _so_ perfect. How doesn’t he get tired of being so perfect all the time? Isn’t it hard work?

“Like on toast, obviously. Or eggs.” His big eyes go to Eliot’s. “Eliot, do we have eggs? Scrambled eggs?”

 _I will find you every egg in Manhattan._ “I’ll make them for you,” he says, voice uneven. How did Eliot get anything done with Quentin Coldwater around? Fucking—nothing else matters, right now, than hauling his ass to the kitchen and hoping they have eggs in the pantry. He can’t remember the last time they actually cooked but like, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t have used up all the eggs.

Luckily, Julia is there to set them straight.

“Q,” she says, in that gentle way of hers. It’s so… nice. It’s so nice to hear her say Quentin's name without the defeated hitch of a sob. “We have to tell you about… what’s happened. With your—your other self.”

He listens as Julia recounts their less-than-happy tale, his munching getting less and less animated as Julia reaches the more difficult parts, her voice wavering to get through it. Even Eliot is vulnerable to it now, the sound feeling like it undoes stitches in his chest, so he can only imagine the turmoil Quentin is going through, having loved and loved Julia his whole life.

She doesn’t explain any of the Mosaic parts – how could she? Eliot hasn’t told her. Hasn’t told anyone but Margo, in an awful drunken stupor, very much in the Anger stage of grieving, where it wasn’t so much opening up to his best friend as much as it was spitting it out at her because _she could never understand, she would never understand, no-one would_. It seems the other Quentin didn’t tell her either, because when exactly would he have found the time?

“I was… dead?” he asks, in a small voice. “I died?”

Julia nods, taking his hand, initially like it will comfort Quentin, but the way Julia looks down at it, in wonder and relief, it’s like she’s anchoring herself too. The reminder that Quentin wasn’t _actually_ gone. Eliot is a coward, and doesn’t move from where he is, but he stares at that hand too, as the same reminder for his stilted, awful heartbeat.

“I’m—I’m so _sorry_ , Jules,” he says.

It startles laughter out of her. Tears run down from her surprised blink. “What? _You’re_ sorry? For _dying_? Q, oh my God.”

“I didn’t just die, Jules,” he says quietly. “I—from what you’re saying, the _way_ I did it… after everything I’ve put you through I can’t—I can’t believe I just _did that_ , to you.” He looks at Eliot, eyes brimming. “Or _you_ , El, oh my God. If I lost you… if I had to say goodbye to you… I don’t understand _why_ I, or _how_ —”

Quentin starts to cry. It’s the worst, most awful thing, it always has been. His sweet face screwed up in despair and shame and misery. His sad bow mouth even sadder. Blubbery apologies spill out of him as he curls in on himself. Turtling, Eliot had once fondly called it, and would force Quentin to cling onto him instead. 

Quentin must remember that, because when Julia leans into him, he looks up at Eliot, face so boyish, in the way it is when he cries. With a pang, Eliot sees Teddy in it.

Eliot’s a coward, and he’s not strong. So he goes to Quentin as well, and doesn’t fight it when Quentin laces their fingers together.

“You’re home, Q,” is what Julia says, and Quentin cries harder, but the sound is relief. He nods against her. Eliot could press his forehead to the top of Quentin’s head, if he just pushed a little closer. “You came home to us.”

*

“Any word from Alice?” he asks.

“On?”

“His memories.” He’d left dealing with this to Julia. She and Alice somehow were… something, in the aftermath of the Monster and losing Quentin. Not quite friends, but, they gravitated to each other the way they both did to people and things in pain. It’s hardly the most surprising thing to have happened in their ragtag bunch of misfits. “If we can get them back.”

Julia shakes her head, sighing down at her oatmeal. “No. I’ve been looking too, but none of the books on resurrection really cover—anything close to this. Because he’s not a resurrection. It’s like he just stepped out of his time. But it’s not time travel either, because he didn’t mean to, and technically his time didn’t _happen_. But Alice says it’s in his book, so it’s like… it’s like it’s really him.”

“But he doesn’t remember.” 

Julia is quiet, and Eliot recognizes this by now as the telltale sign that Julia is thinking, and wondering whether she should say what she’s thinking out loud. It never takes her long to come to her own conclusions.

“Just say it Julia,” he says. Stern, but soft. “If anyone will get it… I will.” _This is all my fault, anyway,_ he doesn’t say, for calling for him. He’s sure Alice told her that. He doesn’t want to know if she thinks it too—and what that means if she does. 

“Is it so bad if he… doesn’t? God, am I a terrible person for saying that? It’s not like _we’re_ withholding the information, that would be different, but…”

“It’s Quentin,” he says simply. “Quentin would want to know.” Plus, he doesn’t say, it’d be a lot easier if there was a way, a spell, a ritual, to restore everything he’d missed, so that Eliot didn’t have to be the one to do it.

“His last few months, El,” she says, and Eliot aches with it. Aches with having to imagine, having to think of his body hurting Quentin, in so many ways. Aches with Julia calling him El; despite everything, he’s so happy to have _her_ . Aches imagining having to do this alone; glad that he doesn’t. “You—he was _the worst_ I’ve seen him. He was tearing himself up to get you back, and every moment he had to look at you, when you weren’t you, I think drove him to do what he did.

“I don’t think there’s anything from that time I’d want him to remember. There’s a ton I wish _I_ could forget. I still—I need to tell him about _Ted_ and I can’t find it in me to do it.”

They hadn’t had to work too hard to take the subject of his father off Quentin’s mind. He’d told them he’d call Ted on New Year’s, because he’d likely gone to his grandparents on Christmas and he “didn’t want to have to have an awkward phone call with them”, so he would wait until he was back in Jersey to get in touch. 

Other than that, Quentin knows most of it. One of the worst things Eliot had to witness was that, the outlining of stuff even he hadn’t been privy to, while the Monster walked around in his body. He can’t tell if it’s worse - to have to live it, or hear about it; these awful events told as if they happened to another person, but they happened to _you_. Is the distance better? Or does it just make ever truly processing it impossible? 

He’s torn. She’s not wrong. But that’s because—because they would only forget by _choice_ . It’s not the same. Having choice _taken away_ could never be the same. And even—that’s not even the worst of it. 

_The Mosaic_ , he wants to scream. His _son_ . His wife. His grandchildren and even the fucking neighbors. Quentin loved all of it, all of them, all of everything. He’d want to know. He’d want to remember. Fuck, Eliot knows _Julia_ , and _Julia_ would want to know, about his and Quentin’s life. He needs to tell her, and Quentin, and he doesn’t know _how_.

“It’s Quentin,” he says again, a little pleadingly. 

And Julia’s eyes flash with pain, and she nods. “I’ll keep looking.”

*

Quentin had told him once that Alice found him suffocating. That his love was too much - too _loving,_ and it made her feel like she was going to go crazy if he didn't stop touching her, stop looking at her, like he was expecting something. And it wasn’t just his love. It was something about the pressure of love from someone like Quentin.

The idea could not be more foreign to Eliot. Who ate up every sappy glace, every functionally meaningless gesture of affection, where the only meaning and function was that Quentin cared about him and wanted to show it. It meant even more when it appeared to be entirely thoughtless. And Quentin gave them so freely, like there was enough to spare. Like there was enough even for Eliot. It made him feel better. Like, if he entertained that Quentin wasn't lonely, wasn't completely misguided, wasn't just too lazy to find a new wife after Arielle when Eliot was there and looking after Teddy and effectively getting Quentin off. Dating was a nightmare as it was, let alone in Fillory, when on a quest and with a toddler growing mouthier by the day.

If Eliot took a moment to consider, maybe, just maybe, Quentin was seeing... something Eliot could see too, in the light. Could be, maybe. Maybe. That was the beauty of Quentin: the maybe. The faith he had in things. In _you_ , once he chose to, and how unshakable it was if he did. Eliot could have spent his whole life content with just… chasing that feeling, of living up to Quentin Coldwater’s expectations.

So. Here’s the thing about getting _that_ Quentin back.

Eliot would absolutely never, ever, look this gift horse in the mouth. Sure, it was unexpected, inexplicable, and seemingly random. Sure, though it wasn’t likely Quentin would come back at all, when Eliot had imagined it happening, it was the Quentin in the park. The Quentin who had been with the Monster. The Quentin who would be mad at Eliot, and be right to be.

But this Quentin? Loving, devoted Quentin who has no idea what Eliot did and what Eliot did to _them_ (what his hands—what _the Monster_ did with his hands, to Quentin), feels less like the Christmas miracle Alice called it, and more like a more specific form of torture.

First, came the conversation about sleeping arrangements.

_“So,” Quentin had said, while Eliot put away the last of the dishes they’d been washing, “it’s been a nice throwback to our sleepover days, but I think I’ve overstayed my welcome in Julia’s bed.”_

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck_ fuck _. What the_ fuck _was Eliot supposed to do here? He broke Quentin’s heart once – this fucking Quentin, pretty much. This happy, dopey Quentin, looking up at Eliot like—like—he had no idea. Because he hadn’t, obviously._

_“I’m sure… Julia doesn’t mind,” Eliot said lamely. Quentin’s eyes furrowed, but his smile stayed suggestive and intimate, like he and Eliot were speaking in secret code._

_“Yeah, I’m not really thinking about Julia as much as I’m thinking about Penny.”_

_“Oh, he’ll hate to hear that.”_

_“Fuck off,” Quentin said, laughing. “Come on, El, don’t make me—”_

_“You have a room,” he said. “You have your own room.”_

_“I… do?”_

_He did. It wasn’t_ his _room, because this wasn’t_ that _Quentin, but it was_ a _Quentin room. He didn’t know how much time Quentin actually had it in, but there were a few recognizable staples – some_ Fillory _books, hoodies in the closet. Eliot… in the early days, did most of his sleeping in there before Margo banned him from doing that. Something about wallowing. Something about_ stop fucking torturing yourself, Eliot _._

_Eventually, he did see her point._

_“I think… you sleeping there is what’s best. For you. Right now. I mean, your own space.”_

_Eliot knew how profoundly untrue that was. Knew how Quentin hated sleeping alone. Even when Eliot was there, he hated sleeping not touching him. How he’d wake up to Quentin grumpily burrowing into Eliot’s side, or pulling an arm of Eliot’s for him to hold it to his body like it was a teddy bear, almost_ mad _at Eliot that he had_ dared _stray even an inch._

_But until he came clean to Quentin – about the Mosaic, about… Teddy and Arielle and everything that came after – Eliot didn’t deserve Quentin’s bed. So he was going to, and then… then whatever happened, happened. Until then, he’d keep… a respectful distance. Hey, he remembered having to leave room for the Holy Spirit – it usually entailed girls and hence not a lot of work from Eliot himself, but he can apply the theory here._

_“Um,” Quentin said, looking lost, and almost making Eliot cave because fuck, didn’t he always want to hold Quentin as much as Quentin wanted to be held? “Sure. I—I guess you’re right.”_

_Eliot walked him to the room, standing in the doorway looking at his feet so he didn’t have to watch Quentin pensively take it in. Absurdly, he panicked that he would sense that Eliot had been in here, without him, and didn’t know if that would make the current situation between them better or worse. It had to be worse, right? For Eliot, anyway._

_And then Quentin turned to him, a question on his face, that as soon as he locked eyes with Eliot again, passed over, and replaced with it was contentment. A soft, easy smile as he went to where Eliot was, and he lifted his chin, just so. The quintessential_ “I want a kiss now” _Quentin Coldwater face. One of his hands rested on Eliot’s shoulder. Eliot had to catch himself out of instinct. How jarring it was to see it back, as clear as in his memories. But not in Fillory,_ here. _At the bottom of the stairs in the penthouse. Quentin wanted to kiss him goodnight._

_Not one for waiting, when Eliot didn’t make any move to lean down, utterly frozen, Quentin took it upon himself to stretch onto his toes to get closer. Only at the last second Eliot managed to swoop down, put his arms around Quentin’s waist and his chin on Quentin’s shoulder. Just for now, the Holy Spirit could endure it, and so could Eliot._

_“We did it, El,” Quentin said, a hushed thing. “I—I want to know how but… it doesn’t have to be now. I just… I’m so happy. And I’m so sorry, baby. For everything you had to go through alone. I’m here now, I promise.”_

_Eliot let out a shaky breath. “Q…” Maybe now. Maybe now before it was too late. Maybe he could come clean now and… and…_

_“I don’t want to rush you,” he said, “I don’t—I can’t imagine, El. I don’t_ want _to imagine, either you going through it or… or if I had to go through the same. But it’s over now. Now, you and me can_ — _”_

 _Fuck, Eliot wanted that to be true more than anything. But it wasn’t. It_ wasn’t.

 _“Goodnight Q,” he said roughly, hoping his tears and hoarse voice could be interpreted as relief, as gratitude, because, well. They wouldn’t exactly_ not _be that as well. He pets Quentin’s cheek once before he goes, which should do the trick, though he didn’t stick around to see if it worked._

_Somehow, it was the first time it occurred to Eliot that this was likely going to be incredibly fucking difficult._

Quentin doesn’t really fight it again. They sleep in their separate rooms and the only indication Quentin gives at being unhappy about it is the longing look he throws Eliot’s way when Eliot says goodnight. 

But obviously, that’s the least of his problems.

Quentin, unquestionably, has a Boyfriend Mode. Eliot doesn’t really remember it from their Brakebills days, due to largely drinking himself into a stupor or steadfastly ignoring it, or dating boys which turned out to be pod people who seduced him to facilitate the end of the world. You know - grad school.

So he hadn’t had a ton of practice with the Mode in question being… _activated_ upon feverishly fucking Quentin under the stars, after a year trying very hard to pretend that that wasn’t something he was dying to do (longer, obviously. Obviously longer). Again, he had no idea what the fuck Alice was talking about: enduring thousands of random kisses and beaming smiles was the fucking opposite of a hardship.

But... it’s one thing to survive Boyfriend Mode Quentin when there’s nothing and no-one for miles, to judge or question, and Eliot can absolutely take advantage without (much) guilt at being the convenient and uncontested target for Quentin’s happy, happy devotion. Entirely another thing to endure it in an - admittedly and needlessly spacious - apartment, with best friends and one… “boyfriend” (Penny-23’s status is still unclear to Eliot. Probably to Julia herself) and one semi-...girlfriend (because Eliot has _seen_ Kady emerging from Julia’s room, from the times she does crash in the apartment she had secured herself). 

Sometimes it’s just Quentin at a level of closeness and comfort Eliot had forgotten they had. Like calling for Quentin in the apartment so that he can ask what he wants for dinner, following the response of _“In here!”_ into the _bathroom_ , and finding Quentin with his hair in a bun and bubbles only just about keeping his modesty intact.

“ _Jesus,_ I’m sorry!” he says, even though Quentin had been the one who told him to come in. 

“God!” Quentin says back. “Eliot, about _what_?”

“You’re, um—naked!” Which makes sense, why the hell would he be in the bath fully-clothed. But then, why _did_ Quentin say come in? If he knew? That he was naked?

“It’s okay, Eliot,” Quentin laughs. Eliot hears the water sloshing around as he moves to sit up, but doesn’t dare look over. “It’s not… you know, anything… new.”

Then he does look. Quentin’s cheeks are pink, from the hot water but also… from Eliot looking at him, so he isn’t as blasé about the situation as his words might indicate. Though… he’s trying to be. He’s trying _very_ hard to be as cool as a cucumber, biting his lip and his eyes shining. It’s so _classically_ Quentin. Eliot wants to pass out.

“Are—are tacos good?” he ends up asking. 

“You mean generally?” Quentin asks, smiling smugly and slowly, like he fucking knows he’s making Eliot flustered, and awkwardly giddy with it.

It’s fucking _hot._

“No, I mean—for dinner? Are you cool if we order tacos for dinner?”

Quentin smiles bigger. “Sounds great.”

“Great.” Eliot swallows. “That’s—that’s great. That’s great that they… sound great.”

Quentin just keeps beaming, rosy cheeks, strands of hair sticking to his wet face, looking so sweet and inviting and the room smells like vanilla because Julia and Quentin went shopping for candles today, which is why this situation is _happening_ , because Eliot got distracted and didn’t leave and ended up walking into Quentin, _naked_ , in a bath.

And now he’s just _standing_ in the bathroom, and really needs to leave, not paying attention to the look that comes across Quentin’s face when he actually does. Like he doesn’t understand why.

(Did he just—did he think that—

Never mind. Eliot cannot know what Quentin was thinking.)

Being in the apartment is a fucking liability. So even though it's the last thing he wants - to have Quentin out of his sight - he forces himself to still run errands, go out, as normal. Well, pre-Quentin-being-back normal. Quentin doesn't want that either, it turns out, saying dangerous things like _what am I meant to do all day if you're not here_ , with sneaky, glittering eyes, or _I guess I'll just wait until you get back_ , all earnest and soft and lips quirked up like—it's no big deal for him to say shit like that. 

Eliot is an exiled, disgraced High King. A postgrad dropout. Former resident of Indiana. In short, he has absolutely fuck all to do most days, especially when the pantry is fully stocked. Odd job tasks for Magicians come through the grapevine every so often, from the remaining alumni who he fucked and whom are still willing to speak with him (a small pool), which would be good for extra cash if they needed it, but they don't, so again it's really just another thing to do. Another reason to be out of the house and away from Quentin's tempting... everything.

He's in his late twenties. He lives in New York fucking City. He can definitely keep himself occupied, out of the penthouse. In his early Fillory days, he spent a lot of time bumming around the castle, avoiding Fen lest she accost him again. His thoughts aren't the most fun to be around, but he knows how to keep busy. Even if that business consists of walking around, listening to music, and not doing much else. Fuck, he'll buy a book and not move until he finishes it, if he has to. That should do quite nicely, because Eliot can't read haha, remember that one? 

He lasts all of two days. In no small part because books? Are pretty fucking expensive. Money is no object for most things in their lives right now but, uh, it's pretty objective there. He signs up to their closest library and goes home. 

The third day of Quentin-being-back, Quentin wakes up before him, somehow, and goes to his room.

"Morning," he says, like he's in a rush. Like he's expecting to catch Eliot on his way out, but: "Oh, you're still in bed?"

"Yep," he says, disoriented from sleep. His voice comes out hoarse and he clears it automatically, though not missing the way Quentin's eyes widen at it. He also fusses with his hair, embarrassed, but Quentin looks longingly at that too, probably remembering mornings of Eliot trying to tame his bedhead and Quentin saying some variation on _no, no I like it like that, it's cute_ . One time even, when Eliot was especially huffy about _why_ : _It's like... you're more human_ . He wonders how much of those moments _this_ Quentin actually remembers. Eliot has about 47 years of memories on him, after all. 

"Are you busy today?"

Quentin, for all that he looks like a kicked puppy whenever Eliot heads out, he's never asked Eliot... that, yet. He looks so crestfallen, like he already thinks it’s going to be the answer he doesn’t want.

So, Eliot says, “Not really,” because what exactly is he supposed to say? No? To that face? Are you kidding? Have you _met_ Eliot?

As Quentin perches at the foot of the bed, Eliot tucks his feet in. To make room for him and also to make sure he doesn't touch him. "Great! Um, do you wanna walk the dog with me and Julia?"

Of course - speaking of puppies - Quentin has taken it upon himself to dote on the little dog Kady picked up and promptly, mostly, forgot about. So had Eliot, truthfully. He puts out food when Julia asks and reminds him. It’s pretty cute, even Eliot can cop to that, but he only really notices it now because it lives its life mostly from Quentin’s lap, licking Quentin’s face. 

It seems low stakes. Walking a dog? With Julia? Not a lot of opportunities for crossing boundaries or breaking any promises Eliot made with himself. In fact, the dog should keep Quentin pretty preoccupied--not that Eliot… you know, would _want_ to fight for his attention and affections. Not that he’s _noticed_ that you can’t pry Quentin from that dog for any fucking thing. 

“Do I have to scoop shit?”

Quentin rolls his eyes, but the bright smile spoils it. “Just your illustrious company is requested.”

Eliot can’t resist it, and tucks his face against his shoulder, playfully demure. Quentin laughs, eyes warm, and they’re laughing together in the early morning in Eliot’s room, just the two of them, intimate and silly, but it doesn’t generate dread in his stomach with how close and soft it makes him feel. It’s just _nice_ . Eliot’s missed him so much, and this feels like the kind of _niceness_ they’ve had for forever, all the way back in Quentin’s first year.

“Is it too optimistic to expect you ready in 20 minutes?” Quentin’s eyes twinkle. 

“You can’t _rush_ perfection, Quentin.”

“I’d never try,” he says easily, halfway out the door. The dog is already yapping for him, in this short absence.

*

True to Eliot’s prediction, Quentin walks a good 10-feet distance ahead of them – Eliot and Julia – with the dog. 

It’s a weekday, and cold, and kind of cloudy, so Central Park is empty enough. It kind of sucks in the snow, though it looks pretty, obviously. Eliot spent a lot of time here, in the first month or so that he was back, and because it was big enough that he could lose himself and kill a few hours. He can’t take his eyes off Quentin, _here_ and _alive_ and chatting with a puppy. A fucking Christmas Miracle, like Alice had said, even if the wind stings his face and he does not have the right shoes for snow. It’s a wonderful fucking life after all. He can’t think of much else that he’d ask. Things are… pretty good, which is insane, because Eliot can’t remember the last time that seemed possible.

Julia watches Quentin too, but when Eliot looks over at her, intending to share a fond, relieved look, her expression shifts, guiltily pensive. It’s strange - at this point, he’s accustomed to it on her face, of course, but in that moment it strikes him that it also reminds him of Quentin.

“Out with it, Wicker,” he says, nudging her arm against his.

“When are you going to tell me about what happened with you two? On the Mosaic?”

“Hasn’t Q said anything?” Honestly, he had imagined he had. What else were they gabbing about in their little sleepovers? When Kady wasn’t around—and Penny-23 _definitely_ hasn’t been, like about a week at least—Julia slept in Quentin’s room. 

Julia eyes him. “No,” she says carefully. “I asked and he said he wasn’t sure what you were comfortable with me knowing. Which—makes sense for him, because he doesn’t know… I mean he _knows_ what you and I have been through, together, these past few months, but he doesn’t _know know_ , meaning he doesn’t know that I don’t think there’s a lot that you wouldn’t tell me, at this point.”

She frowns, pulling at the ends of her hair. “I mean, unless I’m… wrong. I just… figured.”

She’s right, of course. Julia Wicker is right about a lot of things, almost obnoxiously at times. She’s right, which is why it doesn't make sense for Eliot to feel himself get defensive, but it rises up in him anyway. 

_This_ is the angle he tackles first, God knows why: “Surely that’s a question your friend Alice could have found out for you.”

It confounds her just as much as it confounds him.

“Me and Alice aren’t… friends, Eliot,” Julia says, finally, quietly. “I just understand her. Against my better judgement and wishes.”

“And not me?”

“No, Eliot,” Julia says. “God. You’re not like that. You’re... my friend. Or, you know, I thought.”

Ugh, Eliot’s an asshole. The world’s biggest asshole, but somehow kind people keep keeping him around anyway. “You are, Julia, of _course_ ,” he says, holding her shoulder. “Look. It’s not about you. Or not trusting you. It’s—me. I’m bad at this shit.”

“‘This shit’ being?”

“Feelings. Communication. _Not_ drinking in lieu of actually opening up.” He laughs awkwardly. “Also macarons! I always over-fold them.”

Julia gives him an unimpressed look. Eliot winces.

“Yeah, sorry. Should also have mentioned: ‘using shitty jokes as conversational diversion tactics’.”

She snorts, knocking her body into his gently. He feels it like a grateful, warm flare up his arm. Quentin, in the distance, yelps in delight at the dog licking his face as he had bent down to take a stick from his mouth. The two stay in the same spot, and so Eliot and Julia sit nearby. It could oddly feel… paternal, or platonic, to sit and watch next to Julia, but Eliot is so keenly, achingly aware that he is so _embarrassingly_ in love with Quentin, he’s jealous of a fucking _puppy_.

“We were together,” he says, in one go. “In the key quest. When we solved the Mosaic. It took fifty years and I loved him for all of it and I still fucking do and I have no idea how I’m supposed to… live with it.”

Julia listens as he talks. Holds his hand when Eliot’s voice cracks, saying Teddy’s name out loud for what he realises is maybe the first time ever. While Quentin runs in a circle so the dog can follow him, Eliot tells Julia all about the beautiful life he and this _Quentin_ had - or, technically, were about to have, but now Quentin will never have it, and only Eliot will ever remember it. When he’s done, it’s not a weight off his shoulders, it’s a tonne of bricks of his chest, he can’t fucking _breathe_. Kind, lovely Julia rests her head on his shoulder as he trembles. He turns his face in the wool of her hat. It’s a little wet, from the melted snow, but it still smells a little like her hair, like the cigarettes they share.

“You guys ready to go home?” Quentin had walked to them without them realizing. He frowns, that lovely bow mouth pouting in worry. “Wait, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Eliot says, straightening, with dramatic pout. “I’m just tired.”

“Oh,” Quentin says, nodding. Then, brightening: “Should we get coffee?”

Eliot doesn’t really care, but Quentin seems so excited. Not just for coffee, which he’s been without during the Mosaic time, but because… he’s come up with a Good Idea, and wants to do this for Eliot. His puppy eyes are the size of the moon, waiting to be told that he’s good, that he’s so good to Eliot.

“That’s a great idea,” Eliot says, and Quentin beams, looking very pleased with himself. Eliot jumps to his feet, extending a hand to Julia. It’s all for Quentin, the good-natured performance. Julia knows it too, daintily accepting it with a small curtsy.

“Yeah, coffee sounds amazing, Q,” Julia says, leaning in to kiss Quentin’s cheek, and then taking his hand. She swings both their arms as they walk, in the middle of them, while the leash is on Quentin’s wrist, and the dog keeps trying to pull them further ahead. At one point, Quentin relents and lets go of Julia so he can chase after him, but Julia keeps holding Eliot’s hand. It’s a little awkward with both of them wearing gloves, but she holds on. 

*

“Where’s Margo?” Quentin says the next day.

“She’s in Fillory?” Eliot says, in askance before he can think of why Quentin would be wondering. “Oh—but I sent a rabbit to tell her you’re back so, she’ll just… turn up, at some point, to see you. You know—Fillory time difference.”

“No that’s not what—well I mean, that’s great, I really… I missed her.” Quentin smiles softly and kills Eliot with it. “It’ll be good to see her again.”

“She missed you too,” he says, a little hoarsely, remembering the look on Margo’s face when he woke up, and she had to be the one to tell him that Quentin was… gone. He remembers Margo putting her own devastation aside to look after Eliot, in those months of his life he was so out of it he can’t even really remember them anymore.

_“I know you’re hurting too,” he’d said to Margo one night, when she had gotten under the covers next to him._

_“What?”_

_“I know… I know you loved him. And miss him. And I’m making this all about me. I’m sorry.”_

_He didn’t know what he expected Margo to say back to that – maybe he’d see a glimpse of the old Margo. Fabulous and powerful and dismissing that she had feelings at all, but to his horror and surprise Margo ducked her head, hair falling in front of her face. She was so quiet. He wouldn’t have known she was crying if it wasn’t for the shaking of her shoulders, and the trembling hand to brought to cover her mouth._

_“He was doing so… you have no idea, El,” she whispers. “I—I didn’t even fucking see it, at the time, because I—all I cared about was you, getting you back. And he was the same. Letting that… thing drag him around because he thought it would keep you safe, keep you alive. It was bad, and I was—the fucking worst. He was the only person who could have understood but I didn’t even get to_ talk _to him. I_ should _have. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”_

But of course, Quentin is just talking – for him – about the time into the key quest. It’s only been that long for him, and it’s only been _that_ reason why he’s been away, as far as he can think and feel, even if he understands that he was dead.

Quentin smiles bigger, then reaches over, fingers brushing over Eliot’s hands. “I just meant—why isn’t she here, with you? Or, why aren’t you in Fillory with her? _Not_ that I’m complaining, exactly, I’m… happy to have you to myself.”

_“Bambi…”_

_“Don’t ‘Bambi’ me,” she says, wiping her face. “I know I fucked up. I own that even if there’s nothing I can do now. I own it_ because _there’s nothing I can do now, but move forward.”_

_She grabbed his hands._

_“Eliot, I love you. I need you to know that, okay? You’re—the most important thing in my life. I’m not a person if you’re—I just… I will be here for you. For as long as you need me. Longer, because I know you’re a twat who’ll tell me you’re fine even when you’re fucking not, okay?”_

_“I…”_

_“I know, El. I know what… he was. To you. Don’t think I didn’t see it, don’t insult me like that. I’m_ here _for you. Let me be. For me. For him.”_

_Eliot swallowed down a sob. “Is,” was all he said._

_“What?”_

_“Is. Is to me. He… is to me,” he said, the words choking out. “He still—he is. Margo, I—I can’t—”_

_“I know, honey. I know.”_

_But then duty called for Fillory’s once-elected High King. Eliot was kept out of it, either out of sensitivity for his lacking capacity to deal with anything, or because he had told her, shortly after that night, finally, about what the key quest had really entailed. That stepping into Fillory—the smell of its trees, the warmth of its sun—would just be another painful reminder of Quentin, in a multitude of ways. Better to stick to New York, where he was absolutely useless, but at least it wasn’t at the expense of the fate of a nation and fucking with his best friend’s ability to do her job. It was a fight to get her to go back, but in the end it was Julia who sealed the deal. For Eliot and for Margo—because Eliot couldn’t leave her._

Never say Margo Hanson walks into a room without making an entrance. And with impeccable timing—right when Eliot is still holding Quentin’s hand, heart stuttering because he can’t find it in him to let go.

“Where the fuck is he?” 

Eliot braces himself. “Bambi.”

“Margo!” Quentin says, standing. “Hey! I—”

She throws herself at him, hands clutching at his hair, like she also needs to feel the old length of it to believe it. For a moment Quentin does his awkward, _aw shucks_ thing, but Margo doesn’t relent, until finally Quentin does. Eliot watches Quentin wrap his arms around Margo’s waist, eyes shutting as he puts his face in her shoulder, and feels warmth spread across his own chest as they take a moment to be wrapped in each other.

Then she takes a step back, holding his upper arms and glancing over him.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” she breathes out, hands shaking as they sweep over his face, thumbs on Quentin’s cheeks. “He’s—you’re…” She looks at Eliot. “And you’re _sure_ ? You’re _sure_ ? You—you _checked_?” 

Eliot nods. “Alice said it’s for real, even if she doesn’t really know… what for. Or how.”

“ _Alice_?” Margo says, somehow that the last name she was expecting to hear. “Is she—”

“At the Library.”

“Good,” she says. Which—is more her being Eliot’s Best Friend, more than anything, so he rolls his eyes. He doesn’t need anyone to hold petty disdain for Alice. His stupid, jealous heart has got that covered.

“Whoa,” Quentin laughs. “Since—where did that come from? What went down between you and Alice when I was gone?”

Margo’s head goes to one side. But—she doesn’t ask Quentin for clarification. She doesn’t say anything. What she does is just give Eliot a _look_. “Me and Alice are fine,” she says lightly, fussing with Quentin’s hair. “This is so long.”

“It’s always been this long. As long as we’ve known each other anyway.”

“No.” Margo shakes her head, pushing his hair behind his ear, so she can see his face. She smiles slightly. “Not always.”

*

Margo stays the night. She announces this as if it’s this great treat for everyone, even saying that they’re going to order in takeout and that it’s on Fillory. 

Eliot knows it’s about him just as much as it is about Quentin. So does Julia, who eyes Eliot with something like amused sympathy. 

Softie that he is, it does work on Quentin, who leans happily into the loud kiss Margo presses to his cheek.

“Eliot,” he says, “can you make pancakes in the morning?”

 _Of course. My darling. My love. The only bright thing left in the world. Anything you want, for as long as we both shall live_.

“Yeah, Eliot,” Margo says, snuggling up to Quentin, who shoves her playfully. Her eyes widen with an exaggerated, excited gasp. “Can we have _pancakes?_ ”

 _Hateful wench._ The worst person he knows. She’s _awful_ , but Eliot is biting around a smile, and Quentin is snickering, more like himself than he’s been since he’s manifested under their tree. 

So maybe Eliot can take being teased, for now. “If you deserve it,” he says dryly, knowing they do, and that he will, and Quentin laughs like it’s the best thing he’s heard, basically falling in Margo’s lap in his delight. 

*

“God, he’s like a toddler,” Margo says, when Quentin has fallen asleep between them, not even making it through their movie. “Did Coldwater always take this many naps or is it… a resurrection thing?”

“He’s not a resurrection,” he says, and Margo turns to him sharply. “I mean, that’s not how he came back.”

“What?”

“‘What’ what?”

“You didn’t _tell me that_.”

“Oh. Well. I guess I didn’t, if you didn’t know.”

“Why you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, rabbits don’t exactly allow for verbosity.”

“You fucking _twat_ ,” she snarls. “Come clean right the fuck _now_ . Who or when—you said Alice _didn’t know_.”

“She doesn’t! We don’t, either.”

“But then _what is going on?_ How _else_ is he here, El?” She’s lowered her voice to a harsh whisper, not wanting to wake Quentin.

“It’s… a little weird but… somehow it’s Quentin from the Mosaic timeline.”

“The one I stopped from happening?”

“Right,” Eliot says. “But… I guess, because me and Quentin remember it, it technically still _sort of_ happened, and the way Alice put it is that he just… stepped out of it, and came here.”

“ _Mosaic_ Quentin,” Margo says.

“Yes.”

“The one you were basically _married_ to.”

“Jesus Margo, he—he had a _wife_.”

“Who died. And whose son you raised. Which, I guess, explains why the one we have here is currently completely infatuated with you. You know, more so than usual.”

Eliot swallows around the hurt thinking about Teddy makes. “He—this Quentin’s only two years in, ish. It’s—too early. He doesn’t know about Teddy.”

Margo understands at once, because of course she does, and her entire demeanor changes. Her face falls. “ _Eliot._ ”

“That’s,” Eliot laughs, with no humor, “that’s the only reason he’s like—this. He doesn’t know about Arielle. He has… no idea.”

Margo sits up, frowning. “It is _not_ the only reason. Eliot, come on.”

“ _You_ come on! _You_ were the one who told me he and Alice got back together, before the end.” 

“ _No_ , I _said_ he was _such a mess_ that he got back with Alice.”

“Semantics,” Eliot says weakly. He wants a fucking drink, but he and Margo are drinking less, and not at all when they’re together, so they can hold each other accountable (read: Eliot). Which drives him crazy because it just makes him feel like a fuck-up that Margo has to babysit. Then he hears the Margo in his head cussing him out and he tells that feeling to fuck off too.

“Semantically,” Margo says, “Q has been gone for you just as long as you’ve been for him.”

“Fake news,” he says, even as his heart thumps with it. Remembering sweet, delicious little Quentin Coldwater in his first year—the way he looked at Eliot sometimes, so full of meaning, and in those moments Eliot would think, _maybe, maybe…_

Then he would stop himself. Plenty of high-strung nerds where that came from, why ruin what he had with Quentin? Quentin, who, yeah, was clearly in need of a good dicking, but was kind and good and more than just worshipful, more than just in awe of Eliot Waugh, Party King of Brakebills. He just so desperately needed someone to give a shit about him, and was so desperate to give a shit in return. Or like, that he couldn’t help giving a shit. And he made it seem like giving a shit about Eliot was fine, even when he was a mess.

For some reason, in this moment, he thinks of the two of them in the armory. At that point, he’d had Quentin, in Margo’s bed, in the way he’d originally thought he would, as a one-and-done; heard and felt and tasted him about as much as you can one other person. Had come apart in Quentin’s mouth, had held Quentin and brought him over him the edge. But he didn’t feel vulnerable until he was asking Quentin for a hug; didn’t feel intimacy until he inhaled Quentin’s shoulder, taking in a scent he hadn’t known he’d miss until that moment.

Margo huffs, once, shaking her head at him, but lets Eliot off the hook. Kinder than anyone would ever give her credit for, at first glance. But Margo is so endlessly kind and patient, even when she’s calling Eliot a ‘dick’—actually, even _more_ then. She looks away from Eliot and down at Quentin again, wonder re-shaping her expression. Her eyes trace his face hungrily and Eliot’s stomach swoops with understanding, with gratefulness, with so much love for them both. 

“I still don’t understand… how he did it,” she says. “Or how this happened. How he came back.”

“I… asked,” he says, voice catching. Quentin still hasn’t stirred, but he’s slowly curling himself towards Eliot, following the sound of his voice maybe. Eliot wants to pull him all the way, let Quentin sleep on his chest and feel the solid, certain warm weight of him. He lets himself want, and nothing else. “That’s all Alice said. That I asked, and the universe obliged. Apparently.”

“Eliot,” she says, low and awed. “That’s—”

“Stupid?” he laughs. “I agree. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“No, you dick,” she says, swatting at his head, again making sure Quentin is untouched, “I was _going to say_ , it sounds like _magic_.”

Eliot scoffs. “I know everything is back to normal now but chalking it up to magic is very generous. Since when has magic done anything but make everything infinitely, hilariously worse?”

Quentin sniffs in his sleep, smacking his lips and sighing. This is anything but worse. Not resisting himself, he runs his thumb along Quentin’s cheekbone, finger pads catching on his stubble. He needs a shave already. Quentin is so unexpectedly hairy. Manly, despite being so boyish every other respect.

“I don’t know,” Margo says pensively. He looks up to find her watching him watch Quentin. “I think real magic works in ways that might surprise us yet.”

She has a point, even if Eliot will be loathe to admit it. It’s just hard to believe he’d be handed this random act of kindness without any consequences. That’s never been how his life works, and definitely not when magic was involved.

“Don’t hold your breath.”

“Never do.”

*

She’s away to Fillory again the next morning. More than anything, Eliot is surprised by how much he had missed having someone in his bed. A person to fall asleep close to. Obviously, he’s been missing a very _specific_ someone, but that’s neither here nor there (it _isn’t_ ) and besides, he and Margo used to share beds in more ways than one, all the time, and he’d missed her too. Just, you know, in a different way. 

Margo, though she doesn’t say it, can tell he’s already preemptively feeling a little lost without her, which Eliot can tell from the look on her face as she stands in the doorway, holding onto his lapels. 

Stretching up, she kisses him, chaste but long and sweet and understanding. It says, _I’m always here_. Her hair is silky between his fingers. He closes his eyes, trying to hold onto the feeling of peace that spreads over his chest, like a balm. Like VapoRub, maybe, because he does breathe easier. When they separate, his hand on her shoulder, Margo is looking over his and laughing, once, surprised. He turns and finds Quentin’s face looked unhappy. 

“Don’t be jealous, little Q,” Margo coos, and Quentin blinks into a glower.

“I’m not _jealous_ ,” he says grumpily, but convincingly. He genuinely seems more insulted by the notion that she thinks he is. “I just—”

“Oh, _relax_ ,” she says with a roll of her eyes, but a smirk tugging on her lips. 

While Quentin starts spluttering ( _“I_ am _relaxed!”_ ) Margo has stepped back into the apartment and kissed Quentin. Even Eliot is startled by it, because _that’s_ not happened since it first happened, in her room, years and many magic emotions ago. Obviously, it’s nothing compared to the crisis that comes over Quentin. His hands flutter over Margo’s shoulders, as if unsure of where he’s allowed to touch. Always so respectful and polite, even in the most confusing of circumstances.

The only thought Eliot finds himself thinking is that they’re both so… lovely. It reminds him, suddenly, of the first time they had met—Quentin and Margo. That short-lived dorm room, that first day. Margo fingering Quentin’s cheap little tie and deciding he was not _that cute_ , with a pleased, curious smirk. Already accepting nerdy little (and definitely cute, especially back then, tacky tie and all, shut up Margo) Quentin Coldwater into their coveted inner circle of two. Either out of support for Eliot’s intended pursuit, or because she just… knew, instinctively, that it was what was meant to be. Because that was Margo. Thinking back, his own bonding with her hadn’t been too different—under her approval spell, pledging allegiance to this bright and fabulous person who saw him exactly the way he wanted to be seen.

Quentin’s eyes go to Eliot’s, huge and panicked, and apparently just out of his instinct of seeking out Eliot, because when their eyes do meet, they soften, but don’t quite close. They stay on Eliot’s, and for a few loud beats of his heart it feels—ridiculously—like… like _he’s_ kissing Quentin. Like… a phantom limb, the feeling of Quentin’s mouth on his, as Margo disappears between them. It can’t last more than a few seconds, but Eliot feels the time go by slowly, as Quentin’s brows knit together again, his mouth going unhappy against Margo’s. 

“There!” Margo sounds proud as she lightly pats his cheek. “If you needed to be smooched, all you had to do was ask sweetie.”

“Noted,” he says, quiet. He still hasn’t looked away from Eliot. 

Eliot swallows, jovially escorting Margo out, and ignoring his squirming stomach, so determined to tell him that something is off.

*

December 30th. New Year’s Eve Eve. They don’t have plans for tomorrow, other than staying in and watching the ball drop on TV, so they double don’t have plans for tonight. Julia and Kady have gone out, which they didn’t fucking _tell_ him, which is how Eliot finds himself alone with Quentin in their living room. Quentin sits on the floor, the puppy idly chewing at his hand. Eliot has a magazine which he is not reading in his lap. Quentin is controlling the music, which of course means--

“Did you know Taylor released a new album? While I was… whatever?”

He did. He listened to it every single fucking day. He hoped that, well, somehow Quentin would find out about it and storm out of the afterlife and demand access to a Spotify account. If there was anyone that could bring Quentin Coldwater back from the dead, it was Taylor Swift.

“Mm,” Eliot says, idly. He wonders if Quentin has heard the new Carly Rae. He thinks he’ll like it. “Do you like it?”

Quentin nods. “It’s—well, in a lot of ways it’s more of a follow-up to _1989_ than _Rep_ , but you can really hear the evolution of her voice—her like, artistic voice I mean, but like, voice-voice too, obviously—and it can feel like she’s trying to, kind of, glaze over the _Reputation_ era, which was way more experimental, and go back to the successful, nostalgic pop feel but so many of the songs on _Lover_ fit right into the _Reputation_ aesthetic and sound. Like, okay…”

Quentin goes over to the speaker, fiddling with the Bluetooth setting. He starts up the song that Eliot knows is called _Miss Americana_. It’s cute. Eliot doesn’t hate it. 

“I mean,” Quentin is saying over the music, a little too loud, but Eliot loves it, and loves that Quentin can’t even tell, “this _is_ just exactly like _So It Goes._ ”

Eliot focuses on the song. He nods his head to the rhythm, “ _and all the pieces fall / right into place / I get caught in a—_ oh yeah, totally,” he agrees. Quentin is staring at him, spellbound.

“What?”

“You—you listened. To Taylor. To _Reputation_.”

Oh. Oh shit.

Because Eliot didn’t just listen to _Lover_. Not just _Reputation._ No, Eliot listened to Taylor Swift’s _entire fucking_ _catalog_. Give him any song from _Speak Now, Red, Taylor Swift, Fearless, Fearless DELUXE Edition_ and he could at least give you the chorus. He had to go deeper online to find her Christmas EP but by God he found it—he had a lot of time on his hands now.

“Ah,” Eliot laughs. “Ah, well. You know, Bambi and I share a Spotify account and I—I figured I should probably give her actual music a shot, after listening to _you,_ badly—” _singing it for 50 years_.

“You listened to Taylor,” he says again. Like it’s the most magical fucking thing in the world.

“Yeah Q,” Eliot says, “I listened to Taylor.”

The sound of warm, familiar guitar chords fill the room. Eliot knows this one too. He—

“I love this one,” Quentin says, with wonder, swaying a little.

Yeah. Eliot had listened to it and known that too.

“It’s—it’s a slow dance,” Quentin says, eyes darting from his lap to Eliot.

“Mm.”

“No, I mean—” He doesn’t say the words, but he pushes up from the floor and extends a hand to Eliot. The bravest of them both, _always_.

Does Eliot do this? Should he? Should he not? Can a dance just be a dance? _Shouldn’t_ it be just a dance? 

Everything in Eliot’s life, for years, has been life or death—the saving of the world or the end of it. Surely he’s allowed to dance with the boy he loves, and it’s allowed to just be a dance. There’s a strange sense of peace in his chest, then Quentin looks so happy when Eliot puts his hand in his, that he almost changes his mind.

Almost.

They didn’t do—this enough, at the Mosaic. Not a lot of dancing opportunities. But they fit together anyway, of course they do, the way they’ve never needed to rehearse much of the ways they can be together. Though, Quentin doesn’t tuck himself under Eliot’s chin. Instead he has one hand on Eliot’s shoulder, the other still holding Eliot’s, and he’s watching his face.

“You know there’s a version with Shawn Mendes,” Eliot says, to fill the silence, then laughs when it makes Quentin scrunch up his nose. “Oh, we’re not a fan?”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “All his contribution does is prove how Taylor is a better songwriter than most of the people on the pop charts. His verse is—it’s so _generic_ , there’s no detail, no realness. With Taylor you can _always_ tell that she’s pulling from her own life, or from something she’s observed at least, he’s just writing what… he thinks is romantic. There’s no innovation. I have no idea why she even said yes—there’s nothing to gain from it, she doesn’t need his name on a collab to be relevant, _he’s_ the one who—”

Eliot… adores him. Completely. There is nothing wrong with Quentin. He’s perfect. He’s perfect and he’s _back_ and he’s _here_ , with _Eliot_. _Dancing with him_.

Eliot is so lucky. He’s so, so lucky. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, that's how lucky it is.

…And he’s been quiet for far too long, just gazing down at Quentin. At his perfect bow mouth, talking shit about Shawn Mendes. And Quentin has stopped talking shit about Shawn Mendes long enough to notice.

Eliot laughs, a sad broken sound. “I’ve—” he starts to say, with no idea how that sentence is going to finish, but Quentin doesn’t seem to want to hear it anyway. He’s leaning up, up up, and Eliot is stepping back, turning his head slightly to avoid him altogether, not wanting to see the sadness blossom over Quentin’s face. Quentin is still, and doesn’t close the distance back up.

“Eliot, what’s going on?” he says softly. 

“What do you mean?”

“Why… why won’t you kiss me? It’s been days, and you won’t kiss me.”

God.

He isn’t strong enough for this. 

Eliot ducks his head. “I—I don’t think you’d want to, if you know what actually happened. Between— _my_ Quentin and me.” 

Because _there_ it is. The real reason Eliot hasn’t talked; the real reason he avoided telling Julia, and Margo. The reason he hasn’t kissed Quentin as much as he’s wanted to. Eliot fucked up. He had the chance for this thing, it was in his hands, and he dropped it and - probably - broke it forever. Then Eliot got possessed by a monster, Quentin went back to Alice and then he died. Maybe he and that Quentin could have—talked. But this one? Who doesn’t know anything? There’s even less of a chance. A real one, anyway.

And Eliot is still. Such a fucking _coward_.

“I am your Quentin, El,” Quentin says softly. Unfairly. 

“ _Q_.”

“I don’t think—there’s not a version of me that doesn’t belong to you. That didn’t stumble across the Sea to you, laying across that sign, yours from that moment on. So what if I’m a little late? I was late then. But I know all the important parts, El.”

“Which are?” he says, strained against his better judgment. He should be putting a stop to this, putting distance between the ever-decreasing space between them. 

“I love you. We are better together. Everything goes to shit when we’re not. I _felt_ it, El, just like I feel it now—you’re it for me. If I’m really here now, to stay, if this is it, you have to get used to that.”

Eliot laughs. And laughs and laughs. He covers his face, feeling like he’s going to cry. “Quentin, you—some stuff is fresh in your mind that happened a long time ago. And you have no idea about what’s happened since then.” 

“So you’re saying you don’t feel the same?” Quentin says it on a huff, like he doesn’t buy the idea, but there’s a tremor there too, like that would be the one deterrent for him. If Eliot says no. God, he’s so like the Quentin he remembers. The one who said okay and wiped his eyes in the throne room, _apologizing_ to Eliot. The one whose heart Eliot broke, right in the middle of trying to protect his own.

It pulls weakness out of him. He can’t break Quentin’s heart again. He’d sooner die. He _would_ die.

“Quentin. You have no idea how much I have wanted you back—how these past months have been the _worst_ of my _fucking life_ , which is really saying something if you know anything about—”

“I _do_ ,” Quentin says. “I know you, remember? And I _am_ back, Eliot, so why are you _fighting_ this? Why can’t we just be _happy_?”

Eliot’s laugh comes out strangled. “Why the fuck not?” Eliot says, painfully aware that this Quentin won’t pick up the reference – he just frowns deeper, like he knows that there’s a joke he’s missing.

“Eliot,” Quentin says, serious, and it’s such a stark contrast from the sweet, utterly-into-Eliot Quentin he’s been getting for weeks. It’d made him break out in stress hives but he misses it now. “I can’t keep going like this. If—if you don’t love me, anymore, or if you never did, I need to…know. Now. So I can move on. So I can still—to salvage some relationship with you. I can’t do that if you won’t give me an answer.”

_Here it is, Waugh. The moment of bravery you asked for—even if it’s not what you thought you’d get._

Eliot never gets what he thinks he would.

So fuck it.

“I love you.” There—this huge thing taking over his chest is out in the open. This big secret that wasn’t secret at all, to anyone who gave it more than a passing glance. Eliot Waugh loves Quentin Coldwater. It’s not rocket science. Almost hilarious, how much of a fuss he kicked up about saying it earlier. “I always have. I’ll never stop. It’s the only thing I can do… without trying. I _love_ you.”

 _I did it for fifty years and I still didn’t get sick of it, I still—I_ still—

Eliot had imagined all the various ways he would fall to his knees to proclaim his undying love in the most verbose, most only-Eliot-Waugh way possible, if he ever got back to Quentin. 

But he didn’t get back to Quentin, not in time. He didn’t even get his Quentin back. There will always be a version of Quentin Coldwater that thinks Eliot doesn’t love him back. Who died thinking as much. Who didn’t know and died and moved on, thinking his time on Earth was done.

Eliot will never know if… he could have fixed that. Changed Quentin’s mind. Him, or Julia, or Alice or Margo. 

“But that’s not my _point_ , Quentin,” he says weakly. “I—need to _tell you_. What happened. You need to know.”

“Okay,” Quentin nods, taking Eliot’s face in his. “But I need _you_ to know, there is nothing you could tell me that I won’t forgive.”

“You don’t _know_ that,” Eliot says, brokenly, but he lets his head fall onto Quentin’s shoulder anyway. He’s so tired. He’s so weak. He loves him _so much_.

Quentin’s hand comes up to his hair, making a soothing noise. “I know you, Eliot. I know your heart and I know it’s good, even when you’re being stupid. Even when you think it’s not.”

Quentin’s neck smells – it still smells like it did back then, in that other life. Like log fire and grass and _boy_. And he’s so warm, exactly as warm as Eliot remembered. How can he smell the same? How—how—

“Oh Eliot,” Quentin says, with infinite tenderness, and Eliot doesn’t understand straightaway until he realizes oh, oh, he’s trembling. He’s fighting back a shudder and sob. “My El. _Baby_.”

Eliot shakes his head, closing his eyes, and pulling back from where he’d slotted his head in the space where Quentin’s throat meets his shoulders. “I—” he gasps. “I’m—”

Quentin hushes him. “It’s okay,” he’s saying, “it’s all gonna be okay.”

And then, so swept up—in the scent and his voice and his _words_ —Eliot doesn’t clock that Quentin is leaning back up again, up up, and kissing _him._

And Eliot’s arms just about have time to circle around his back, to shut his eyes to drown in the relief of the feeling— _I’m home I’m home I can still have a home—_ before Quentin collapses, again, in Eliot’s arms. 

“Q!” he calls, but Quentin is passed out, body limp and asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the comments/reviews/kudos/love/good vibes. i read and love them all i promise. it's much appreciated that you take the time to do so. i hope this chapter compels you further


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuck. Quentin is back. The Actual Quentin. The Quentin who had patched things up with Alice while they were patching up a wound in Eliot’s stomach. That Quentin. Not the sweet one from the Mosaic, mooning after Eliot. That one is finally gone forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO!!! 
> 
> sorry, i messed up and had to re-post this chapter! i said a bunch of stuff in my OG author's note that was heartfelt and now of course has fled my brain. hopefully it isn't confusing for anyone who's getting an email/notification twice! 
> 
> regardless: posting this, so close to... That finale, feels weird, and i hope it brings comfort rather than resentment for what the showrunners handed us. this fic, in many ways, is a love letter to eliot as much as it is to quentin AND eliot as a love story, and this is as close as i could post which served that. it’s easily the hardest i worked on a fic, and i hope that comes through

“What did you _do_?” Alice demands. He sees Julia give him a sympathetic look before Alice slams the door shut behind her.

Eliot is not enjoying this turning of the proverbial tables, as it were. Definitely not as satisfying. He wishes Julia was on this side of the door with him “I didn’t do _anything_ —I mean, we sort of, kissed.”

“You kissed?” She frowns.

“Hey, look, he kissed _me_ , and it was only for— and even if it were, you made it clear—” 

Alice groans. “Eliot I don’t _care_ about _that, God_ , I just mean—is that all? Just a kiss? And he passed out? And he hasn’t woken up since?”

“No,” Eliot says, miserably, “no, oh God, Alice, did I—have I—if I fucked this up, if I killed him, _again,_ somehow…”

The last thing Eliot wants is to break down in front of Alice Quinn—for her sake and for his, but, well, tough shit, apparently, because she’s the one here for it. He puts his face in his hands to hide his gasps and sobs, which can’t work at all, obviously, but he can’t look at her. He can’t look at anything, he can’t _breathe,_ if Quentin really is gone, he _can’t_ —

“Eliot,” Alice says sharply, a hand on his shoulder. “Eliot. How many times do I have to tell you? This is Quentin, for real. I don’t know what this… kiss did but it didn’t kill him. He’s still _here_ and he’s _breathing_. I wouldn’t tell you there was hope if there wasn’t.”

Eliot nods, inhaling sharply and wiping at his eyes. She’s right. She’s right. Just because they have no idea what’s going on doesn’t mean it has to be bad. It’s just—force of habit, really, to assume that it is.

“Alice—”

“He’s back!” Julia says, bursting out of the room.

“…from the dead?” Eliot says, in horror. Had he really killed him?

“No! Well I mean, yes. I mean he _remembers._ All of it.” Julia laughs incredulously. “He… it’s _Q_. Really Q this time. He’s _back_.”

“What?”

“I know!” 

But he can’t quite breathlessly rejoice like Julia just yet. He turns to Alice, who has her lips pursed. “What—does this mean? What’s going on?” 

“I’m going to go… check on him,” she says, slowly and not moving. Eliot is thrown until her eyes flick up to his and he realizes she’s asking for… permission, in a sense. Or at the very least warning him. 

Fuck. Quentin is _back._ The Actual Quentin. The Quentin who had patched things up with Alice while they were patching up a wound in Eliot’s stomach. _That_ Quentin. Not the sweet one from the Mosaic, mooning after Eliot. That one is finally gone forever. 

Even though he knows he did the right thing, in keeping him at bay, Eliot feels a pang of petulant regret. _I didn’t—I didn’t even get to—_ he thinks, panged and desperate, and then stops himself. He did, didn’t he? One good kiss, in the glow of the Christmas lights, dancing to Taylor Swift. 

It would be… enough. Quentin was _back._ The _right_ one. 

The one who had made a choice – _not when we… have a choice,_ isn’t that what he’d said?

“Go on,” he says roughly. 

“I—” said Alice. 

“Eliot—” That was Julia. 

“I’ll—later,” he says. “I’m—eggs.” 

Which they are out of. And which Quentin loves. He can buy eggs. He can do that. 

*

He brings back the eggs. Walked around Trader Joe’s in a daze, and then tried to collect himself before he arrived back at their building. He is Eliot Waugh. He’s rebuilt himself countless times. And he’s _told_ himself over and over that if they got Quentin back, somehow, it wouldn’t matter how Quentin felt. In fact, if he and Alice really are prepared to have another go of it, maybe Eliot… shouldn’t even bother telling Quentin how he feels. What would be the point? Quentin had _died_ and _come back_. He deserves to be happy whatever way he chose, and Eliot wanted him to choose it for himself, which is what he had done.

Eliot takes a deep breath in front of the door. He is Eliot Waugh. He brought Quentin Coldwater back to life. Now, finally, he could get on with his. Get back to life. Find himself a new one, like he always has.

Julia is on the couch. Eliot’s surprised to find her there, and not at Quentin’s bedside, which must mean he and Alice aren’t done… talking. Which is fine. They have a lot to talk about. It’s fine that they’re… talking.

( _Or maybe mooore_ , sings an evil little voice in his head. Then, something that sounds a bit more like Eliot: _well. I mean. Obviously that would be none of my business_.)

“How is he?” He busies himself with the groceries, as if Julia would buy for a second that he feels so casually about Quentin being back that he’d inquire whilst topping up the sugar. 

“Asking for you.” Well, there you go.

Eliot smiles tightly. “Well, I’ll let him and Alice finish up first.”

Julia exhales, sharp and unimpressed. “ _Eliot_ , I—”

The door opens. Julia stands. Eliot almost drops the sugar, just avoiding it with his telekinesis kicking in. He holds the bag, uselessly, when Alice shuts the door behind her, carefully. At the sound of the click, she looks away from the door, and jumps at the intensity of both their gazes on her.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she says tightly, before recovering slightly. “I, um—yeah. He’s—good. Like, healthy, normal, non-evil. It’s just… Q. He’s… back. For—good.”

Julia, who seemed so convinced that that was the case from the first second, still sighs in relief, putting her face in her hands. 

Eliot is… holding a bag of demerara sugar.

“Also—” At this, Alice looks nervously at Eliot. “He’s… asking for you. Eliot.”

Julia turns to him as well. 

Eliot _is holding a bag of demerara sugar_. “I—” he says, squeezing the bag. “I’m…”

Julia walks over, smoothly transferring the bag to her arms, as if it were a newborn. Eliot, feeling his hands shake, misses the bag as soon as it’s gone. 

“Go on,” she says, soft but stern.

“I’m… gonna go,” Alice says behind them. 

What the _fuck_ is going on? “Alice,” Eliot says, frowning, because fuck this, fuck her _leaving, again_ , just because Quentin didn’t—but he _did_ , he came back right this time, she just said, so why the fuck would she _leave_?

(Why would _anyone_ leave Quentin, when they were the one who Quentin wanted? Make it make _any_ fucking sense.)

“Just… talk to him, Eliot,” Alice snaps, then rubs her forehead. “I’m—you need to talk to him. You guys need to talk.”

“But—”

“Julia, can I—speak with you first?” 

Julia—who is holding the bag of sugar—nods. And she puts down the bag. Eliot’s gaze follows it and Julia catches him. 

“Oh my _God_ , Eliot,” she says, shoving him. “Go!”

He goes.

*

“Come in,” Quentin says from inside, at Eliot’s knock.

It shouldn’t be possible but—Eliot knows straight away that it’s Quentin, really back. Well, Alice told them as much, but—she wouldn’t have had to. It’s something in the way Quentin holds himself, now, in the years in between their early years in the Mosaic and now. He wears the shadow of the memory of his old age, in the way Eliot understands, because he does too. There’s… a placidity, less of that classic Quentin frantic energy; the boy who was floating into Eliot’s gravity. Eliot mourns that energy and is glad for it to be gone, at the same time. 

Maybe that’s just what loving someone for so long is like. You love all versions of the person at the same time, and miss them all at once. 

“Hey,” Quentin says, looking up. His face is calm. Which is… good. Confusing, but good. Eliot expected yelling, crying, anything on the extreme spectrum of emotion. But Quentin just… looks. Eyes locked on Eliot. 

“Hi,” Eliot swallows. “How—how are you feeling?”

“Fine. Or, I think fine.” Quentin shrugs. “Normal, at least.”

“Good,” Eliot says. He walks over to the window. The sky is bright outside, not quite sunny, despite the blanket of snow on the ground. He runs his finger along the windowsill—did they… did they clean in here, since Quentin got back? He can’t remember doing so. That’s awful. He should. “Do you want… tea?”

Quentin’s head tilts to the side with a small frown. “No… thank you,” he says slowly. 

“Are you sure? I mean, we have—we have lots of different kinds, even—” _that peppermint one you like_. Eliot chokes back the words. Is that—is that okay for Eliot to say? To know? 

“I know,” Quentin says. “But still, I’m good.”

“So…” Eliot swallows. “Alice says you remember everything. From… from before.”

“I do.” 

Eliot nods. “Good—that’s good.”

“Yeah.”

Something… Eliot had wondered, before, pops into his mind again. At Quentin saying he _knows_ they have the brand of tea he likes, which would make sense, because he bought it with Julia, this week. So he asks, “Does that—does that include the last few days?”

“Yeah,” Quentin says. He hasn’t looked away from Eliot once, but it feels more meaningful, more… something, when he says it. Eliot’s heart rate spikes up. 

“Oh I—that’s,” what, Eliot? Great? _Is it fucking great_? The last few days have been… Jesus Christ. Last _night_. Quentin remembers _all of that_. “Surprising. Or not, I guess. We just—didn’t know if that would happen. Not like we could have known _any_ of this was going to happen. I certainly—”

“Eliot.”

It’s good Quentin cuts him off, because he has no idea what he was saying. But he also doesn't know exactly what Quentin plans on saying either. Doesn’t know if—well, if he wants to. Will Quentin be embarrassed? Will he ask Eliot to forget all about how he’d been acting? 

His hands go to his rings, twisting one around his finger. “...yeah?”

Quentin smiles then—a little tired, a little sad. “I’m back from the dead. For—the second time this week, technically. Why won’t you kiss me?”

Eliot’s heart—gives out. All of his breath leaves his lungs, in one shocked, happy, confused exhale. “I—I—I—” is what he manages to say with human words. He wrings his hands together. He needs—to lie down—

“Or… maybe I should talk, first?” Quentin says gently, crossing his legs under the blankets. Then he looks at Eliot expectantly, and Eliot—understands, oh, he’s making space for Eliot to sit. “Do you… I guess you’re… probably wondering what I remember? From before, I mean?”

Eliot, having sat, laughs a little weakly. “I—yeah, I am.” Obviously. “Did you… really come straight from the Mosaic?” That part still is the most curious to Eliot. 

Quentin scrunches up his face in thought. Eliot’s stomach has a normal reaction to that. “It’s weird,” he admits. “It’s like… I remember what he—it’s like it _was_ me, but it’s… a little foggy, like it doesn’t know where to slot in my brain. I, like, try to make sense of it and put it in a… sequence, but it can’t, I don’t know, _do_ that. Because it didn’t happen, but then, also happened at the same time as everything… else. I’ve not lived this all before but I lived being _this age_ before, you know?”

The Monster. The park. And Quentin… 

Quentin takes a deep breath. “I guess… the first thing that I remember is waking up in bed, alone, which felt weird, because you always used to wake me up—you’d, you’d kiss me and sing that song—”

“‘Good Morning’,” Eliot says, and can hardly breathe, remembering himself. He’d almost forgotten. He has the ridiculous feeling that he’s blushing. It’s just so… tender. Almost like it was a different person—being that open, that transparent, about the softness of his feelings. Serenading the boy he like-liked, _so_ much—with _musical theater_. “From _Singin’ in the Rain_.”

Quentin smiles, like he’s remembering too, even though he’s in the middle of remembering something else. “Yeah. Which I pretended to be annoyed by, every time, but really I loved it, because I loved it when you sang for me. I loved it when you sang, but even more when you sang for me.”

It’s a little revisionist. Quentin has always been a nightmare in the mornings, even as far back as Brakebills. Grumpy and impossible and snappy. Eliot loves it more than fucking anything—more than fucking, even. Coaxing wakefulness out of Quentin had always felt special, intimate, Quentin indignantly groaning, “no, no, no,” and at the Mosaic Eliot had got to do it pressing sweet kisses, wherever he could, and murmuring, “ _good morning / good morning / we’ve talked the whole night through…”_ against his skin.

“And—so that woke me up,” Quentin is saying, “because you weren’t there and I—I don’t know if I _heard_ you outside, it feels like I did, but I don’t know. Maybe I just felt like I should have heard you outside, or it could be, you know, went looking for you. And when I stepped outside, you know, I didn’t go outside. The next thing I knew I was standing next to Alice, in the Library.

“The first thing I assumed was that—I don’t know, I thought we’d solved it. Or you know, you had, while I was asleep. I mean, what else was I supposed to think? Anyway, I was—so worried. I just… _you_ weren’t there, El. So I kept asking Alice about you, where you were.”

“God she must have _hated_ that.” Eliot can’t help himself. He doesn’t mean to be mean—well, a little, but mostly… he does mean it. He can’t imagine Alice… enjoyed that reunion with her boyfriend. 

“Quit it,” Quentin says, with a roll of his eyes, and Eliot’s stomach flips over with it, to see it—his perfect little shithead, back. He’s _back._ “I wasn’t—I didn’t exactly _know_ , or whatever, I wasn’t trying to get her feelings. I just—”

“There was no point getting back if you weren’t here too, you know,” he mumbles, and _God,_ Eliot _does_ know, does he _fucking know_. 

“I—” Eliot starts. _Quentin, these past few months—_ but he. Stops. Looks at his hands. “Then… you came here,” he says instead, to prompt him to continue.

Quentin allows it. “Yeah, I asked her to bring me to where you were. And she just… did. She didn’t argue.”

He looks at Eliot. “And when I got to the penthouse, we were together again… and then Julia told me what had happened… to _me_ , technically, even if it didn’t feel like it had. And I understood, then, a bit more about why you were putting up walls, telling me we should sleep in different rooms but… I also didn’t. Because I was _here_. I just—I wanted to give you space but I didn’t want you to retreat, the way you… can do, sometimes.”

“I wasn’t—retreating,” Eliot says, more than a little huffily, because he wasn’t—or, not for the reason Quentin thinks. “You just… you were acting like everything was fine between us, because you didn’t know. Obviously. And I wanted to tell you, but there just… wasn’t time. And I didn’t know how. I had been getting ready to tell you how—how I felt…”

He says it softly, halting, as he realizes exactly what it is he’s saying. What he’s confessing—what he’d been dying to say ever since he said it to the Quentin in his head. Then remembers what he said to the other Quentin, just last night, which this one remembers—Jesus there’s _too many Quentins_ (and there’s a sentiment Eliot never would have thought he would feel. Quite the opposite, once, in a dream), but now… just one. 

“But it didn’t feel right, not if I couldn’t also apologize. Not if I didn’t know how you really felt, at the end.” If he wasn’t sitting down already, he would have to. He can’t look at—but he will. He has to. 

“You know how I felt.” Quentin says it not unlike a grumble. Eliot takes a moment to be charmed, then swallows, nodding. Daring to hope—hope enough to keep going.

“And… now? You… still?”

“Yes Eliot,” Quentin says, with a hint of annoyance. “I _still_.”

“But—Alice?”

“And I talked,” Quentin says. “And we’re—it’s done, it was done a long time ago, but it’s gonna be okay. One day, maybe. Maybe not. That would be okay too.”

“I thought—you and Alice—before you—you _chose_ her. You chose _her_.” 

Quentin’s answering sigh is so bratty, so long-suffering, he truly can’t be anyone but the Quentin who put up with his bullshit for fifty years. Then he says, “I _always_ choose you, El. When you’re an option I choose you, every time. Haven’t you noticed?”

Eliot… might have a panic attack. “Oh my God,” he says, bending over with his face in his hands. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

“El…” he hears behind him, a little faltering. Eliot breathes in once, twice. Then moves to climb onto the bed and—ew, gross, he’s still wearing shoes? Indoors?—kicking off his shoes hurriedly and kneeling in front of Quentin. 

“I love you,” he says, first, because it feels like a good place to start, “I need you to know that I love you.”

“Eliot,” Quentin says, “it’s okay, I know—”

Eliot waves his hands. “I know you know, but I need to say it anyway. Just like how I need to say I’m sorry, and that I was wrong, back then. It was all real, it was _us_ , all along, and I said it wasn’t because I was scared. And when I’m scared I run away.”

Quentin takes this in silently, choosing the next words with care, Eliot can tell. “And now? Are you… still scared?”

Eliot laughs, reaching for Quentin’s hands, delicately sitting in his lap. They’re warm. Quentin’s always been so warm. He used to whine about Eliot’s chilly feet in bed, used to shiver if Eliot brushed his fingers against the nape of his neck. He doesn’t shiver or whine now. “I’m terrified. I’m so scared, Q.”

Quentin frowns. Doesn’t quite grip Eliot’s hands back, but the way he holds them is careful, considering. “And so—what does that mean? Are you running now?”

“No,” Eliot says. “I’m not.”

Quentin does hold his hands then. Eliot just said he’s not going anywhere but Quentin holds on like he might change his mind, and dash off any second. “Yeah? What—what changed?”

_You died. I almost did. I lived without you and it felt like I lost everything. I can’t do it again, not if… I have a shot._

“Other than, I guess, the obvious,” Quentin admits wryly, a sheepish smile the only reference to the fact that he, you know, died. He _died_. God, though Eliot very much lived that reality, with Quentin here, in front of him, it almost seems hard to believe. Quentin is so, so alive. 

“It’s about… what we deserve. I can’t speak for myself, after all the shit I’ve done… so much of this mess was because _I_ made it Q, even if I did it to save you. It’s still all a mess. _I’m_ a mess. But. _You_ … deserve someone who loves you like I can love you.” Eliot swallows. “I can’t—there’s not a lot I can offer you, but I can offer that much. Making you happy, every day, would make me happy and I know I can make you happy, Q, I’ve had so much practice, even though I don’t think I ever really needed it. Is it… is that enough? Can we build from there?”

Quentin makes a choked, desperate sound and grabs for Eliot’s hair. The kiss he gives him is messy, and hard, but it’s a _kiss_. A _kiss_. “You—you’re such a fucking idiot,” he says, in a harsh whisper, and Eliot would take that as a rejection except Quentin just kissed him and is kissing him again. “That’s _all_ I was asking for Eliot, that’s all I was ever asking for, you’re so _stupid_.”

Oh. _Oh._

“I’m stupid,” Eliot agrees, maybe laughing, definitely crying, “I’m the stupidest, baby, can you still love me even though I’m so stupid?”

“I have _no fucking choice_ ,” Quentin says, not laughing, definitely just interested in more kissing. That’s fine, Eliot wants that too. 

Oh, to kiss Quentin. _Q_. “Q,” he says, out loud, just because he can, feeling it come out like breathless awe. “Q, Q, Q, _baby_.”

Quentin makes a sweet little sound, holding onto Eliot’s neck, yielding and lovely. Then he’s shuffling down the bed, under Eliot. “ _Help me_ ,” he snaps, putting Eliot’s hands on his shirt and making him tug at it. Then, when Eliot laughs again, free and delighted, Quentin frowns with his hands above his head, ready for Eliot to pull it off him. “Eliot, come on!” 

“Julia—and Alice are just outside,” Eliot reminds him, just shy of stuttering because Quentin pushes up to lick at his throat. “Need—I need to put up a ward, Jesus, give me a _sec_.”

His hands move through the tuts and he swears as Quentin continues to latch onto his neck. He thinks he might be trying to give him a hickey but he can’t quite reach, so he just bites and nips and licks. He’s perfect. Eliot’s whole life, in this moment, is perfect.

“You know they’re gonna know…” Eliot breathes. “That we…” Because even if the time spent in here doesn’t do all the suggesting for them, the complete silence emanating from the room will be suspicious enough.

“I don’t know who you think we’ve been kidding but they definitely _know already,_ it’s _us_.” Quentin bites Eliot’s lip. “Plus, more importantly, _I don’t give a shit._ Now take my fucking shirt off.”

He takes Quentin’s fucking shirt off. Has a bizarre moment where it’s in his hands and he wants to bury his face in it and then remembers that he has the real deal right there, and dives in, pressing close, only to be enveloped in the scent. Quentin, impatient as he had just been, endures it gamely, running his hands over Eliot’s back and through his hair. _Quentin_.

“You’re… back,” he says, an awed, broken thing. “Oh God I can’t believe you’re back. I got you back.”

“That’s _my_ line,” Eliot says hoarsely. 

He can’t really see, but he feels Quentin shake his head. “You don’t—you can’t know, Eliot, I thought, oh my _God._ ”

“Shh, baby.” Eliot pulls back and Quentin’s beautiful little mouth is trembling. “It’s okay. We’re okay, aren’t we?” He kisses him once, gentle and open. Quentin moans, tears breaking free and falling down his face as he shuts his eyes in pleasure. “Let’s not think about anything else.” 

Eliot’s hands roam over Quentin’s shoulders, his chest, and kisses him until both of their breathing is less shaky and more shallow. Wanting. 

Getting Eliot’s clothes off is a team effort, even though Quentin insists he wants to do it himself—he needs guidance on some of the inner, discreet buttons of Eliot’s vest. Mostly, Eliot is able to oblige because it seems Quentin got entirely naked without telling Eliot, and Eliot wants to take his time looking over him. That _ass_ —it’s entirely possible he missed Quentin’s ass most of all. He believes as much, anyway, in this moment. He looks down at it with impossible fondness; cups it almost pensively.

“You need to fuck me,” Quentin says, with quiet fervor. Eliot grips tighter, and Quentin bucks forward, so they’re chest-to-chest, cocks lined up deliciously. Eliot drops his head to Quentin’s shoulder. 

“ _Q_.”

“I need—I need it, El. Make me feel alive again. No-one else does it like you can. Make me really feel like I’m alive.”

And then Quentin is pulling away. Eliot’s arms go loose for him to go, but they stay suspended where they were, afraid to move. Quentin has crawled away from him, down on his hands and knees. 

“ _Please,”_ Quentin says, softly, over his shoulder, barely looking at Eliot. He trembles until Eliot drapes himself over his back, not wanting to relinquish any closeness. He feels Quentin’s spine rock and arch under his chest as his fingers open him up. Kisses his ear, the curve of his shoulder, the dear nape of his neck. Whispers how sweet and good and hot he is, just for Eliot, just how Eliot had missed.

Quentin says his name, over and over, and Eliot keeps going until he can tell Quentin’s ready for him, knowing, when the desperation in his voice changes pitch. His hands cover Quentin’s ribs—so skinny; too skinny; Eliot will make more pancakes—touching reverently, but also to help in turning him over. “Let me,” he says, wanting Quentin in his hands. Wanting to look after him, this pliant, gasping boy. Let Eliot. 

“No,” Quentin says. His eyes are shut and he shakes his head. His hands grasp the sheets tightly and he plants himself firmly. “I want—like this. I want to—just feel. I want to just feel you Eliot, and nothing else.”

“Baby,” Eliot says, absolutely wrecked—they don’t, usually. Not him and Quentin. Eliot and other, nameless fucks used to all the time but… he always liked to see Quentin. It feels, weirdly, like responsibility, and that makes Eliot feel afraid.

But he wants to give Quentin everything he wants. So he nods into Quentin’s shoulder blades, not caring if his tears fall there. Let Quentin feel them. Let Quentin feel. Into the skin, he whispers the spell to slick his fingers and presses into Quentin one more time—a selfish endeavor, as it’s just to hear Quentin want him. To feel him contract into his hand and push back into his touch.

“Eliot,” he says, urgent. “If you—”

“I will, I will,” Eliot says, not caring that his voice is _shot_. “I’m going to, I’ll make you feel good, I promise. It’s only going to feel good now.”

Fucking into Quentin was always sweet, even when it was supposed to be just fucking. So now, it feels all the more like coming home. Staring into Quentin’s lovely, open face was often, usually, a part of it, so it is a little strange to be facing his back. But Quentin did have a point, because he can press so much closer like this. He covers Quentin entirely, down to his hands over Quentin’s, lacing fingers together. Quentin moans wildly, openly, just pure feeling, and Eliot is so fucking glad he managed to silence the room because even if Julia and Alice are thinking this is exactly what they doing, Eliot would like to keep _some_ dignity, which would be impossible if they were privy his cries of, “Oh Q, oh, oh, love you, baby, love you _forever_.”

He’s lost any sense of rhythm. He just holds onto Quentin’s hands and anchors himself, thrusting from there. Quentin doesn’t seem to really mind—he’s doing a lot of the pushing and rocking himself, but that won’t do at all. Eliot _promised_ , and Eliot is going to keep all of the promises he ever makes to Quentin, from now on.

Gripping their hands together tighter, Eliot wraps them around Quentin’s torso, holding him from behind. Quentin does all too willingly, falling back into Eliot’s embrace onto an impossibly deeper angle. His head falls back and Eliot holds him tighter to him, and again, Quentin was so fucking right, it’s so, “fucking good, baby, so good, love you _so much_ , gonna show you—every day.”

Quentin sobs, pulling up one of his hand, entwined with Eliot’s, to suck a finger into his mouth. Eliot almost falls forward, dropping them both on the bed, so he shoots one hand out to steady himself. One hand one the mattress, the other caressed by Quentin’s tongue, he pushes to thrust ever harder, arm across Quentin’s chest to keep him close.

“You’re going—you’re close,” Quentin has pulled his hand out of his mouth to say. He laughs. “I can—I can tell. How it feels, how you sound—I _remember_. _Oh_ —Eliot, I remember everything, so _beautiful_.”

Eliot can’t speak. Eliot doesn’t know English, anymore, only this, only the sounds Quentin makes when Eliot hits _that_ spot, at _that_ angle, because Eliot remembers too, thank God, he remembers all of it, and he’s going to remember everything else, everything that hasn’t happened yet.

Eliot can’t speak, but he doesn’t need to. Quentin turns his face into Eliot’s neck, nuzzling with an open mouth. “Inside,” he murmurs, breath catching. “ _Ah—_ inside, please Eliot, come inside me.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Eliot hisses, “Quentin, I, _you_ haven’t…”

“It’s okay,” Quentin gasps. “It’s okay, it’s so good, Eliot, it’s so good, I want to feel— _you_ , and then you— _after_ —just please.”

It takes over him all at once, from the base of his spine to the hair on his scalp standing on end. He hunches over Quentin, burying his face in Quentin’s neck, while his hips stutter on and on and on. His mind leaves his body, but he doesn’t let go of Quentin, holding him probably too hard, but he needs it, to remember that this is _real_ , that this is _happening_ and that he’s not going to _lose it._

Quentin, sweet boy, breathes hard. Waits, as Eliot shivers and shudders into his back, holding on until he feels himself drift back to the present, to their room, to Quentin’s skin. Eliot nuzzles his nose there, absently, until he feels how Quentin is trembling.

“Oh, you’re so good, baby,” Eliot says gently. Now that he’s come, he’s able to keep it together a little better, even as he’s completely overcome with affection and devotion. “So good, waiting, you took it so well. The best, Q.”

Quentin lets out a little helpless, “ _ah_ ,” and from over his shoulder, Eliot can see his pretty dick twitch, just from Eliot’s words. God, his perfect, _dream_ boy, he can’t ever let him go again. With a tender kiss to his throat, Eliot pulls back, intending to just pull out but Quentin’s hand scramble back. “No, no, no,” he says fervently, “please, I, I want to while you’re still—just, touch me.”

Eliot could die. “ _Q_.”

“I said I want to feel you,” Quentin is still going, “I want to feel your—hands and your chest and your— _inside me_ , I want to feel all of you, _please_ , Eliot, I missed you so much—I couldn’t—I thought I would never, _God_ , see you again.”

Quentin’s lovely voice hitches, like he might be about to cry—which Eliot can’t handle, because then _he_ will, and if he starts crying, he won’t stop, and then poor, patient Quentin will never get off. So he reaches forward, in front of Quentin. One hand is on Quentin’s jaw, arm across his chest, so that he can turn Quentin as much as he can, to kiss him as he jerks him off. Quentin won’t stay still, so the kisses are sloppy on his cheek. Quentin rocks in time with Eliot’s jerks as much as he can without losing any of the physical contact, still making sure they’re chest-to-back.

Eliot gives him one good squeeze, just shy of too rough, and Quentin chokes out a, “ _yes,_ ” before he’s falling forward and Eliot is there, pulling him back. Eliot wishes—God, he wants to see Quentin’s fucking perfect, open face but this way he feels the ripple in his back, sees the perfect arc of his come on the bed as his orgasm lasts for ages and ages, until he’s putty in Eliot’s embrace. It snags at the inside of his chest, the way Quentin just gives himself over to him, so trusting and lovely. It used to terrify Eliot, to be trusted—like this and with this. Now, it just rattles him with protectiveness. If his one purpose in life is to keep this one boy safe, so be it. Eliot’s never been good at anything else. Eliot can make this his singular focus—what was it Quentin said? He has no choice anyway.

Then Quentin makes a soft complaining noise, wordless and so tired. Obliging, Eliot finally pulls out—not escaping his notice that he’s, um, no longer as soft as he was after he came, but that’s okay—and hushes Quentin, who lets him gather him up to his chest and bring them both up the bed. Eliot goes to magically clean the sheets but Quentin groans, arms around his neck. “It’s fine,” he says. “I’m not using that side anyway.”

“Oh, you’re not?” Eliot can feel his own face scrunching up with a horrible, dopey smile. “Where are you gonna sleep, then?”

Quentin amiably pats Eliot’s right pec, as he turns his cheek onto Eliot’s left. “Right here is good.”

 _You belong here_ , he thinks and doesn’t say, with a rush of protective, tender emotion. Then, because it feels like he should, he says, “It’s where you belong,” very quietly, feeling it stronger when it’s been said out loud, heavy in the room, he threads his fingers through Quentin’s hair. “ _Q_.”

It’s weird, how it hits him all at once. Like he could ignore the dread and despair crawling up his throat when he was focused on making Quentin come, but once that’s passed, it crashes down on him like ice water. 

Quentin looks up, smug, then, seeing Eliot’s face, he falters. “Eliot?”

“I missed you so much,” he says shakily. He’s so tired. He’s so scared, fuck, why is he so fucking scared? “God, Q—if you—I wouldn’t have made it, I don’t know how I did it without you. Any of it. I—can’t do it again.”

“You won’t,” Quentin says, face open and sympathetic and gentle. He smiles, though Eliot has no idea how, because Eliot is being a fucking _mess_. He feels like a _disaster_. “Eliot, you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried, you know, and I assume you’re not going to, this time.”

“But—” _you left. I wasn’t here and you were gone and I didn’t even get to say goodbye. What if you want to go again? What if—oh God, what if I fuck this up?_

“Eliot, _sweetheart_.” Quentin pulls on Eliot’s arm until Eliot is the one on top, Eliot covering Quentin’s body. “Let’s just sleep, okay? I’m here, you’re here, I’m not going to leave you. This is it now. Let’s just sleep.”

“But—we haven’t have dinner,” Eliot mumbles, unconvincing as he noses down Quentin’s neck. Does he want dinner? Is he even hungry? What could he cook? _God_ , getting out of bed seems _so_ exhausting but Quentin should eat, he should eat.

“It’s okay, El,” Quentin says idly, like he’s soothing a child. It’s _how_ he soothed a child. He used to talk to Teddy like this, when Teddy was restless. And Eliot too, when he was being restless (Teddy had to get it from somewhere). Quentin was always—so good with Teddy. Gentle and sensitive and weepy, always weepy. The absolute sweetest dad ever, it would _melt_ Eliot every fucking time, just the way that it poured out of Quentin, so easy. Like it never occurred to him to be other than the most loving, most devoted, softest dad, and Eliot, who had such a—different dad, was terrified and healed by it. Grateful, that there was a little boy who had a dad like Q, because Eliot sure could have used one. _Petrified_ that his father might come out, and fuck up Teddy the way Eliot had been messed up. Shockingly—he didn’t. He did a good job. They both did. Teddy was a sweet boy, your basic nightmare teenager, and then a good man. A good father. The cycle was broken, in part because Eliot had a partner like Quentin. Quentin saved him, just as much as Teddy did.

“I—miss him,” Eliot chokes out, because he’s been looking at Quentin for _days_ and missing Teddy, but not saying anything, feeling he was going to die if he didn’t.

Quentin’s eyes fill with tears and his mouth turns down, but all he does is nod. “Me too, El. I miss him too. We’ll miss him together now, okay? Together. You’re not alone here.”

Eliot pushes his face into Quentin’s clavicle. “Dinner,” he says, one last time, because—because he should. Quentin should eat. Eliot should make sure he eats. Eliot has to look after him.

Quentin hushes him, smoothing a hand down his hair. God, it feels so good. Quentin’s so _warm_ , and he doesn’t even complain that the tip of Eliot’s nose is cold, like he used to. He just lays there, stroking Eliot’s hair. “In a bit,” Quentin says. “Let’s just… be. For a little bit. I just wanna… be here, with you, for a while.”

Well, Eliot can’t argue with that. But he does say, “Okay,” wanting to feel a little like he’s in control of the situation; like _he’s_ the one giving permission, even as he feels Quentin hum, sounding patronizingly magnanimous, relishing the opportunity to tell _Eliot_ what to do. He’s such a dork. Eliot loves him, and whispers as much, feeling light, like he might drift away.

*

Eliot wakes up with a start – immediately furious. Because he wasn’t supposed to wake up because he wasn’t supposed to fall asleep.

“Q,” Eliot says, voice rusty. Exactly how long were they out for? He’s more or less in the same position they were when they were _supposed_ to just be cuddling, but _apparently_ fell asleep. Eliot, on his front, one arm stretched out to his side. An arm currently nestled between Quentin’s legs, both of his arms wrapped around it. He delicately snores on Eliot’s shoulder.

Eliot detangles himself, and to his surprise, Quentin rolls over gamely, arms and legs more or less star-fishing on the bed. Arms on either side of his hips, Eliot lowers himself to kiss down Quentin’s belly, the perfect, thick snail trail he has. Because he wasn’t supposed to fall asleep. Because Eliot wasn’t done with him. Because _sleeping_ was _wasting precious Quentin time_.

“Q, baby,” Eliot says, hushed. He kisses Quentin’s thigh deliberately.

Quentin stirs, making an unhappy noise; so displeased at waking up, every time. Eliot will fix that; he’s pretty sure he’ll be happy to be up pretty soon (wink wink). Eliot kisses up his inner thigh, until he reaches the base of Quentin’s cock. He opens his mouth against it, tongue just resting against that familiar patch of skin.

“El—iot?” He hears above him, confused and groggy. “What are you—”

“You’ll figure it out,” Eliot says, and sinks down to take him into his mouth.

Quentin punches out an _oh_ , breathy and stunned and delicious. He arches up, sounding so _confused_ that it comes out pained, “ _El_ , oh my _God_ ,” he says, bucking up harder when Eliot moans around him. Eliot takes it, takes all of what Quentin can give.

Slowly but surely becoming more and more awake, he threads his hands in Eliot’s hair and thrusts, so urgent and wild that he’s stopping and starting, like he can’t figure out how to best chase the pleasure. One hand over Quentin’s abdomen, Eliot finally sucks down to the root, feeling Quentin’s thighs tremble with the effort of staying still. _So good_ , Eliot wants to coo, as loud as he is in his head, but instead, trying to convey it as he strokes one hand up and down Quentin’s thigh lovingly.

Quentin lets out a whimper as Eliot reaches down to cup his balls, feeling them so tight and desperate. Eliot, needing to take one last breath, pulls off with a gasp. “Come on, gorgeous, you’ve done so well, come for me.”

“ _El_ ,” Quentin says, strained.

“You’re perfect, sweetheart. You’re beautiful, Q.” And he really is. Hands fisted in the blankets, writhing around, cheeks flushed. He’s the most beautiful thing Eliot’s seen. The most perfect. He couldn’t have dreamed him up.

All it takes is one more suck against the tip of his dick, barely taking it into his mouth, and Quentin comes with a pained garble, his whole body going stiff with it, while Eliot closes his eyes and feels his blood rushing through his ears. He feels so impossibly happy. Quentin makes one more mewling noise as Eliot opens his mouth wider, slipping Quentin’s cock out. He’s back to being sleepy and pliant now, in that way he gets after an orgasm. Needy too – his hands tug at Eliot, trying to make him go faster as he crawls back up Quentin’s body. Eliot kisses him, Quentin’s taste still on his tongue and Quentin makes another soft, startled sound, so _cute_. He blinks his long, long lashes at Eliot when they break apart, then smiles.

“Good morning,” he says, happy and shy.

“I’ll say,” Eliot says, nuzzling his cheek. “God, I’ve been wanting to do that all week.” Truly, he feels a weight off his chest he hadn’t quite realized he needed off – or rather, that could be off simply by sucking Quentin off, even though, from 50 years experience, he should have had some inkling of the cathartic effects of giving Quentin head. He’s more than a little half-hard, but it feels secondary to the feeling of just being close. He’s had so many erections. He’s not had close to enough lazy morning snuggles with Quentin.

He’s in such a blissful state that he doesn’t register Quentin’s pointed silence until he idly rolls over to the side, not thinking much beyond that he wants to look at Quentin’s face instead of just pressing his into it. When he does, he sees that small, telltale frown, and has a slight _oh no_ twist in his stomach before Quentin says, “Well… why didn’t you?”

“Why—didn’t I? Q, I—I couldn’t obviously.”

“What do you mean _obviously_? You think—I didn’t want it?”

“Well, yes and no Q.”

“What—what did you think all that fucking—what me, on the _first night_ asking to go to your room with you was? Or all but inviting you to take a bath with me? Or—“

(Sidenote, Eliot _knew_ that was what Quentin was doing, he _knew_ —)

“—or _slow dancing_ with you in the living room? You thought that was all fucking— _platonic_? You thought I wanted to share a bath, _like bros_?”

Eliot puts his hands on his face. “God, Q you—it’s more _complicated_ than that. Which, seeing as you remember the rest of the week, you should remember me _telling you_. You didn’t—not only did you not know what had happened, after the Mosaic, I couldn’t exactly trust that you _actually_ wanted me. Not when all the information you had was…”

“Was _what_ Eliot?”

“Before!” he shouts and immediately feels his stomach pool with dread, because _why_ are they fighting? What’s there to fight about? Why does it matter? Quentin is _alive_ , he’s _back,_ not _two minutes_ ago Eliot had his perfect sweet cock in his mouth—why are they even _having_ this conversation. What even _is_ this conversation. He was about to suggest—read: beg—that they drop it, but Quentin is relentless, because Quentin, despite his wallflower ways, _never_ backed down from a domestic spat.

“Before _what_?”

Speaking of domesticity. “Before Arielle,” Eliot says, low. “Okay? Jesus. You—sure, in the first few years at the Mosaic, we were happy and you were… sweet on me, sure, but you also had a crush on Arielle, from the second she stepped onto the scene, and once you could have her, I was old news. I couldn’t just— _blow_ you when I knew that you only wanted me because you couldn’t remember her—you know, because she hadn’t happened yet. Fuck. Happy now?”

He can’t look at Quentin. He—he trusts Quentin when he says that he loves Eliot, but it’s hard. It’s complicated. Arielle was this wound between them—a wound of Eliot pretending he was fine that Quentin was moving on, unceremoniously, from a convenient fuck to a beautiful redhead who smelled like peaches and could produce a million babies for him and was from his fucking dream world. And then, Eliot liking her long enough to feel horrible guilt that he ever felt jealous or resentful of her, only for her to die. For Teddy to be without a mom. And for Eliot to feel like it was his fault, or his punishment, to have to make up for it by not even coming close to who he was supposed to step into the shoes of. He can’t look at Quentin, because he doesn’t want to see what he already knows—that he’s _right_ , that it’s all—

“Bullshit,” Quentin says. “That’s such total fucking _bullshit_.”

Eliot _does_ look at Quentin, because uh, that’s not what he thought Quentin would say. “Q—”

“Eliot, if I was so hung up on Arielle, if _Arielle_ was the supposed love of my life, why did I spent the next roughly 45 years years _with you_? Why did I never find anyone else, never need to, never even _try_? Why did I _fuck you first_ , and continue to do it, like a goddamn teenager for _years_ , until yeah, a pretty girl talked to me and I got flustered, the way I always did, and you _pushed me away_ because of what I now learn is you, thinking it was your job to decide who I was going to be happiest with?”

Eliot _stares_ at Quentin, who isn’t just sweetly protesting to save Eliot’s dignity, he’s _pissed_. In fact, seeing Eliot stunned into silence makes it all the _worse_. “Jesus _Christ_ ,” he snaps. “Eliot—is _that_ why you turned me down? When I read the letter and I told you I wanted to try again? Because you thought I only loved _Arielle_?”

Bizarrely, Eliot feels a pang of shame. It feels too vulnerable, to say it out loud. His hands twist together. “No,” he admits, because in the back of his mind _is_ the other half a century or so, after her. Arielle is just what—he’s been telling himself. Quentin’s right. It is kind of bullshit—and it’s bullshit that’s covering up the actual truth. “I mean kind of. But yeah—not _all_ of it I guess. Honestly? I thought I’d... tricked you, somehow, into believing in something that I could so easily screw up again. And... I wanted you to choose me for me. Not because you loved some other, hypothetical Eliot who somehow didn’t manage it fuck it all up.”

Quentin exhales sharply, nostrils flaring. “You _are_ that Eliot. Why are you so obsessed with everyone having different _versions_?”

“Yeah, I know—”

"No, I don’t think you do," Quentin says heatedly. "I didn’t—you have _always_ been kind to me. And loyal. And patient. And I have _always_ wanted you. But none of my relationships work, not really, not in the way we did, but you were so out of my league I might as well have been in a different—fucking— _sport_ , and I loved you, Eliot, I loved you so much. My whole life, before you, I only had one friend, and I almost messed it up because I couldn't get over my stupid feelings."

"Quentin—"

"I couldn't risk you, Eliot. It was inconceivable. I couldn't—it wasn't until the Mosaic, when I loved you for fifty years and somehow it wasn't bad for you or too much and you didn't leave, even when it was hard, even when it sucked, even when I was a fucking nightmare to be around. You _loved_ me, and our kid, and there was no hiding that… That…”

“That what?”

“That I knew. You’re the one, Eliot. You’re it. I know you think—you would have fucked it somehow but I was the one who... _I'm_ the one who was lucky, and there wasn’t one moment when I didn’t know it. Any holding back on my part, anything that made you feel like I wanted anything else, was me trying to make it last as long as possible.” 

“ _Q.”_

“And when you told me you didn’t want to try again, it just felt like that was all true. Like you’d only managed to put up with it for 50 years one time, and there was no way you were trying it again. Like… it was a fluke.”

“It wasn’t,” he says hurriedly, and shit, crying again, a little. “It wasn’t. It was us, Q, it was us the whole time. I’m him and you’re him. We—I’ll do it again, I promise, I _love_ you, I promise I’ll try, every day, to make you happy.”

Quentin softens then, cupping his face. “I know, El,” he says. “And you will. You always have. Always.”

Which is where he should leave it. Maybe, he should kiss Quentin and let that be the end of this conversation. But he can’t, not when his stomach is still his knots, his heart is still racing. “That’s—actually not true,” he blurts out. “I—Not always.”

“What?”

“When—the Monster.” He can’t complete it until a full sentence. And besides, there’s too much— _when the Monster was in my body; when the Monster told you I was dead; when the Monster hurt you with my hands; when the Monster killed people, made you watch and made you help; when the Monster was me because of me because I couldn’t let you live, alone, in a dark castle with it, forever. Because I couldn’t be without you._

“Eliot, that’s not fair,” Quentin says, laughing a little, but it’s nervous. “You—weren’t here.”

“Exactly,” Eliot gasps. “I wasn’t here—and you—you _felt_ like you—and I’m terrified that you’re going to feel that way again and there won’t be anything that I can do, or I’ll make it _worse_ , and if that happens I’d rather us not be together at all because I want you to be happy Q, with me or not. And—and you have to tell me, if it ever gets that bad. And I know you have—brain shit, and that I can’t _fix_ that but… I want to help. And maybe I-I can’t.” 

Quentin curls into Eliot. Oddly quiet, for all—he’s protested so far. An answer for each one of Eliot’s worries. It makes sense that this would be the one that he doesn’t have one for, but Eliot’s heart still pounds, like Quentin is gonna say, “ _You’re right. This will be a disaster. You’re no good. Better not even try. I’m gonna go next door, find Alice, and—“_

“I can’t promise I won’t feel that way,” Quentin says. His hair tickles Eliot’s skin, but he stays still. He won’t move until Quentin’s done talking, “ever again, because… that’s just. How it is. I’ll feel that way sometimes, but probably not like it most of the time. And the times when I do feel that way, it’ll feel like all I know how to feel, maybe for days before I remember anything else. But… you make it very hard to forget, El—the, um, good stuff. It’s not _why_ I love you but it’s why I’m glad I do. It’s why I _choose_ this, over and over. I need—I need to find a way to convince you of that. The only reason I—I—in the Mirror world, was because I was so exhausted, and run down, and I only cared about getting you back and I only thought about it for a second, but then it was too late. And I know that doesn’t change—I _know_ … what I did, and I know that for you it’s going to feel, for a while, like I’m just gonna—leave, but I’m _not_. But I also know it takes more than me saying it for you to believe it. So we’ll just… be patient with each other. We’ve always been good with that.”

Eliot—doesn’t believe it, not all the way, but he lets it wash over his chest, calming his frantic heart. It’s occurring to him now that he was on the verge of an anxiety attack. “I think I have—trauma,” he says, blunt and awkward and almost laughing, at how ridiculous, because, uh, _duh,_ Eliot. It’s not exactly _new_ , is it? 

But. Acknowledging it is. Not burying it in drinks and drugs and boys is. Not even burying it in—the one boy. Because you love him, and love him enough to know that’s not what you do.

“Yeah,” is what Quentin says, instead of teasing him, and Eliot _loves_ him. Eliot doesn’t say anything else, because—it feels like enough, for now. “I do… too. I think that’s okay. A lot’s happened.”

And for some reason? That’s hilarious. Maybe it’s the _complete fucking understatement_ of it all. Eliot sputters out a laugh, about to apologize for his inexplicable reaction, but something similar must have happened in Quentin’s brain, because he does the same. Quentin’s breathy giggles tickle his chest, making him laugh harder. _A lot’s happened_. Honestly, he’s adorable. What is Eliot going to do with him?

Quentin looks back up to look at him, dimples all over the damn place. Eliot tucks his hair behind his ear. His lovely long hair. His smiley eyes. Lovely Q. “You’re so gorgeous,” Eliot says, hushed, which is weird, because it’s not a secret. To Eliot or that Eliot thinks so. “I could look at you forever.”

“That’s my line,” Quentin says.

Eliot purses his lips, in false thought. “Mm, also true.” Quentin smiles harder, then goes gentle and serious.

“We… should probably go to therapy,” Quentin says. “And deal with all that—stuff there. The trauma. And talk about what they say we should talk about. Okay? And we go from there.”

Eliot tries to not let it burst his happy bubble. _Therapy_ has never— _he’s_ never. And not that he thought he was above it—well a little—but looking back, it’s more like he didn’t deserve it. That he was messed up for plenty of good reasons and so why bother? Yeah, like he needed a stranger to tell him his father was awful and being gay in Indiana was awful and then charge $100 dollars for what Eliot already knew. And maybe he wasn’t—good, but he was handling it; taking something you know and putting it in a box so it doesn’t have to come out into your life is _handling it, thank you very much_.

Except not, of course. And even if it were, _a lot has happened_. It’s a little overwhelming, if he thinks of how his childhood was so terrible, but his adulthood has been so empirically _worse_ in so many ways.

Just then Quentin kisses a spot just above his ribs, careless and idle. Not for attention. Just… because.

…empirically _better_ in a lot of ways too.

So yeah. Eliot should probably go to therapy. He feels stupid for not suggesting it first, honestly. He’d support Quentin going to therapy in a heartbeat, expecting a battle even. Instead, Quentin has to pitch it to _him_.

“What?” Quentin says. “You’ve—your face is all pinched. Where did you go?”

Eliot huffs out a humorless laugh. “Nothing. Or, I mean, Jesus it’s all—it feels wrong. _I’m—_ I always… _I’m_ supposed to be the one looking after you.”

Which doesn’t make complete sense, but Quentin gets it. Gets it so much he gets a little huffy. “Well I mean, why can’t we look after each other?” and he means it as bratty and indignant, but Eliot laughs, because he’s _right._ God, he’s right. That’s the only way this is going to work.

“You’re so smart,” he says indulgently. “My brainy little Q.” 

Quentin squirms a little, like he’s too shy to admit he likes the attention; the spoiling. He’s delicious. Eliot wonders if he can talk Quentin into letting Eliot rim him, as a treat.

But: “Speaking of looking after each other,” Quentin says, slow and suggestive and oh, he probably thinks he’s being super smooth, but Eliot is _wired_ to recognize that cadence—of when Quentin is talking about Eliot’s dick, which had softened a little over the course of the conversation, but now stands in attention, all _me me me!_

And yeah. Eliot can let himself be looked after a little.

*

The thing about when they finally emerge from their bedroom, a full night and several hours after Eliot first went in, is that it’s New Year’s Eve. Alice is long gone, but Julia and Kady are at the kitchen island, standing close as they drink their respective coffee and tea. Kady has a bagel on a plate in front of her that Julia is stealing bites from, and acting like she’s put out about it.

“Signs of life,” Kady calls out and Julia looks over, smiling smugly before swatting at Kady, who snickers.

Quentin goes a _brilliant_ red, rubbing at his neck as if it only just occurs to him that it could be littered with hickeys (it is).

“Good morning,” Julia says, pointed and yet kind. She eyes Quentin with that same hungry relief—which probably won’t fade for a while—but then switches to look at Eliot, raising her eyebrows as she sips from her mug.

“You look _rested_ ,” Kady says, leaning on her forearms. The puppy runs over from between her legs to greet Quentin, who crouches down. 

Eliot can _absolutely_ play at this game. “Thanks,” he says brightly, but with no bite. He’s too well-fucked for that. “We slept really well, after our long-awaited reunion lovemaking. We appreciate your interest.”

“ _Eliot_ ,” Quentin yelps, just as Julia chokes on her coffee. Kady scrunches her nose. The puppy skitters away and Quentin watches it go sadly. 

“Ew,” she says, “definitely not interested in _that_.”

“You asked.”

“Guess I did,” Kady snorts, distracted by how flustered Quentin has become. Eliot gets it. It _is_ pretty diverting. She raises her mug. “Nicely done. You build up an appetite?”

“Oh my God,” says Quentin, moving around them to serve himself up a plate of bacon. Then, sweetly, he turns back to Eliot, another empty plate in his hand. “Babe?” 

_Babe_. Eliot flushes then, feeling… so much. He has a boy, whom he loves, and he calls Eliot _babe_. In front of his friends. Then, seeming to realize, Quentin’s cheeks blush again, revealing how it supposedly just slipped out of him. _Babe._ “Starving,” Eliot purrs, and Kady groans, but with a smile that she buries in Julia’s shoulder. “Famished after this morning.” Which it technically still was, morning, but.

He’d said it to tease Quentin further (ignoring Kady’s mutter of, _Jesus Christ_ ) but Quentin chews his bottom lip instead, looking impossibly pleased with himself. Eliot feels a rush of giddiness. Quentin has _every_ reason to be pleased with himself.

“We’re gonna head out in a sec,” Julia says, petting Kady’s mass of curls. “We were thinking of ordering in tonight? But we’re gonna venture out to get booze, maybe ice cream, before it gets super crazy.”

“For what?” says Quentin. He trying to shoo away the dog, saying, _I can’t feed you this_ , about the bacon. 

“New Year’s,” Kady says slowly and Eliot barely has time to get pissed and defensive on Quentin’s behalf, _he just came back from the dead, bi—_ when Quentin laughs.

“Shit, of course. Sorry, slipped my mind amongst all the—”

“Fucking?” Kady smirks. 

“ _Lovemaking_ ,” Eliot corrects.

“ _Jesus Christ_.” Quentin covers his face with his hands. Then, talking only to Julia: “Please get me peanut butter ice cream.”

“Duh,” Julia says, booping his nose.

“And wine,” Eliot says, hugging Quentin from behind. For all his squawking, all his _I’m so mortified_ vibes, Quentin doesn’t protest when Eliot puts his chin on Quentin’s shoulder. And Eliot’s drinking less, sure, but hey—it’s New Year’s. “Red. Nothing under $10, fucking nothing from _Austra—”_

“Uh, how about you come with us?” Kady says, unimpressed and eyebrow cocked. “I’m nobody’s personal shopper.”

“Sure.” Quentin shrugs.

“No,” Eliot blurts out, because _no_ , he doesn’t want to go… fucking _grocery shopping_ with Julia and her (definitely) girlfriend. All he fucking does these day is grocery shopping, and yes, he will undoubtedly bitch about how they bought the wrong brand of cheese and all the other shit they forgot to buy because it wasn’t _him_ in charge of it (not to Julia; Julia is an innocent), but he will _not_ step foot in a supermarket today. Not today _Satan._

“No?” Quentin says.

“I’m buying whatever wine I want.” Kady.

With great effort, Eliot ignores that, and faces Quentin. “I was, um. Thinking that we could… do something.”

“Something?”

“Like, go out,” Eliot says, quickly, like that needed explanation. Quentin watches him carefully, all big, shiny eyes. Fuck. “Like… we can go see the Christmas lights, which should still be up I think, even if the crowds might be insane. And then grab a bite? Maybe at – the Plaza? There’s a market. And, uh, ice skating if you like.” _Everything you told me you loved. I want to give you everything you want._

He has no idea why pitching, essentially, a date is making him so fucking _nervous_. Especially a date he knows is _perfect_ for Quentin – crowds notwithstanding. Quentin, whose dick Eliot had in his mouth this morning. Who so generously and tenderly sucked Eliot’s like he’d been dying to. There’s almost no chance Quentin is gonna say, _um, wow Eliot, I’m flattered but—_

But it’s still there. Because, you know.

Quentin looks like he’s about to cry, but the good kind. Fuck, what a magic thing it is, to surprise and delight Quentin. Eliot is spellbound. He bounces over to Eliot, leaning up to press a long, sweet kiss (though chaste, probably on account of Julia). So surprising and tender that Eliot forgets to play his part and turn it filthy, for Quentin to get hot and embarrassed. He just blinks down at Quentin when they pull apart, who keeps holding Eliot’s face. “Thank you,” he says softly, just for Eliot. His eyes are squinty and shiny – Eliot’s favorite.

“We’ll be back for the ball to drop,” Quentin says to Julia.

“All right,” Julia says, smiling, and reaches over to pinch his cheek. Then, she fusses with Eliot’s collar, a needless thing that makes him feel happy and warm. _Looked after_. “You kids have fun.”

“We will,” Quentin calls over his shoulder, leading Eliot out of the room by the hand. 

*

Venturing into the city is… a mistake. It seems that although no-one else has a recently once-dead boyfriend they want to take for a nice daytime date, the rest of New York’s population and seasonal visitors all have more or less, uh, _exactly the fucking game plan as Eliot_. It’s sardine levels of packed wherever they go.

Eliot has an okay enough time because he’s with Quentin, and Quentin is so sweet and polite and never complains once, even as the crowds visibly set him on edge. Which, Eliot gets too, it lines his stomach with dread as well. But it’s nice to just… walk around with Quentin, who is his boyfriend.

(They haven’t really talked about it but… this feels like a boyfriends thing to be doing. More so than very tenderly giving oral. Maybe they should officially talk about it – or he could ask Quentin – just for Eliot’s nerves?)

Anyway, the best parts are navigating location-to-location, and not having to be in line for anything or deal with a million other people.

The best parts of the best parts are as follows:

  1. Quentin, pressing up to Eliot on the subway and leaning up to steal kisses, as Eliot holds on for both of them
  2. Quentin, taking off his glove on one hand, and instead holding Eliot’s from inside Eliot’s coat pocket
  3. Quentin, and his rosy cheeks in the cold



They do manage to buy some mulled wine (coffee for Eliot, he’s being good so he can have wine later) and artisanal hotdogs for each of them from the Christmas Market, even if they have to walk for a while to find somewhere to sit.

Oh, Eliot’s forgetting:

  1. Quentin, handing Eliot his own drink without looking, so that he can eat his hotdog, because he knows Eliot will hold it for him
  2. Quentin, and watching him open his whole mouth to bite into the hotdog (what? Eliot never claimed to be a role model)
  3. Quentin, carefully blowing on his mulled wine before he drinks it; spilling it a little and muttering _ah, shit_
  4. Quentin, and the stain of wine of his lips – which, when he catches Eliot staring, says, “What?” but let’s Eliot kiss it off



“I’m sorry,” Eliot murmurs against his lips, his concern that he’s making Quentin miserable a little soothed by the way Quentin’s eyes are slow to open back up, and his mouth staying soft and pliant. So Eliot kisses him again – what, is he not supposed to?

“For, um.” Quentin licks his lips, staring at Eliot’s, but with great effort continues: “For what?”

“Hm?” Eliot says. Quentin tastes good. Maybe Eliot should kiss him again. 

“What are you sorry for?”

“Oh,” Eliot says. Then, a little shyly: “For suggesting this flop outing.”

“It’s not a flop!” Quentin says, immediately. Because he’s so cute.

“Baby,” Eliot says, pressing his forehead to his. “It’s all right. It flopped. You don’t have to pretend just to not hurt my feelings.”

“No, I mean it,” Quentin says, all earnestness. “Like, yeah, the crowds are annoying but… honestly, if I think back, even though I loved it, it was much of the same. Not like New York has never _not_ been crowded around Christmas.” Quentin laughs sadly. “I guess, I was mostly just remembering spending time with my dad.”

Eliot doesn’t know what to say, because he knows there’s nothing he can say that will make this all better. He just smoothes his fingers along Quentin’s temple; tucking away hair that isn’t falling into his eyes anyway (8. Quentin in a beanie), just because.

“It’s… hard,” Quentin says, “without him.”

Eliot feels a spike of fear; a whole other level to which this was probably a fucking _stupid_ idea. “God, Quentin I didn’t even _think—_ “

“No, don’t start,” Quentin says, predicting where the spiral’s destination. “That’s not what I meant. That’s not it at all. I just…”

His hands are busy around the cup of mulled wine, so instead he leans against Eliot for closeness instead of touching him. “I wish he was here. I wish we had spent Christmas Eve in the penthouse, and then driven to be with him in New Jersey for Christmas Day. I wish he had made awkward small-talk with my boyfriend, because he’d try so hard to show how okay he was with the _boyfriend_ of it all, and probably made me feel grateful and mortified. I wish he _knew_ you, El, because he’d have no idea how to show it, but he’d love you. And I wish he could have known Teddy, because he’d love him more than he’d love either of us, to be honest.”

He looks up at Eliot. “I wish a lot of things were different. But not right now. I’m okay, I promise. It’s just,” he sighs, a little unsteady, “hard. I miss him. And I hate that I’m gonna spend the rest of my life missing him, and thinking about what he missed out on, and seeing how… happy I know I’ll be, because God knows I put him through enough that he deserved to see me finally happy, so he could stop worrying for once. But this was the right thing to do, El. It was exactly the right thing. You always know exactly what I want or what I _need_ , before I do sometimes. It’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

“Oh sweetheart…” How can he say: _it’s easy_? 

Quentin isn’t done. “You have—no idea, how much I could have used just even the idea of someone like you when I was a teenager. I couldn’t have wished for you because I wouldn’t have had the words. But if there was some way for someone to tell me, ‘Hey, I know you think that all you have is your dad and Julia and _Fillory_ books, but one day there’s going to be a boy who loves you so much, he’ll face the Christmas tourists just because you told him once that you loved going to Rockefeller Center when you were eight’. It… could have saved my life, Eliot. You _have_ saved my life.”

He laughs, but his eyes are pained, sad. “I’m—I know I’m gonna have to address everything that happened with—the Monster. I know I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen, just because he’s gone and it’s fixed now, kind of. Well, not really, I guess. There’s new broken parts. But the point is—I’m not _scared_ about doing that. I know it’s going to be fine, because I have you again, and as long as I do, it’ll never be as bad as it was. But I will—deal with that, with a professional. And anyway, today I’m just really grateful that you’re my boyfriend.” His voice trembles. “And that—you took me on a date, and that you love me.”

Eliot has been pretty quiet, just politely listening even as his pulse thunders, but that’s the final straw. He needs to kiss Quentin. “Thank you,” he says quietly, to make the tremor in his voice not too obvious.

Quentin groans. “What are you thanking _me_ , for, I _just_ said—”

“I know,” Eliot says, kissing him again. “I know, baby, I’m just thankful, okay?”

“Fine,” Quentin grumbles.

“You’re so generous,” Eliot coos. “So indulgent, of your boyfriend.” Feels good to say it, and now that Quentin’s said it out loud, it feels like he has permission to never stop.

Must feel good to hear too, because Quentin smiles, this private and smug thing. “Mm,” he says in agreement. Takes a sip of his wine. Lifts his cheek up towards Eliot so he can keep kissing it. _So_ generous. So lovely.

“You know I would have wished for you too, right?” Eliot says, forehead pressed to his temple. “Or, I mean, like you said—if that lonely, miserable boy in Indiana could have _known_ that he’d be in love with this sweet, kind boy, who treated him like—he was fucking worth something… It’s like—I know I didn’t, you know, I’m not trying to play trauma Olympics, especially because I know that—we each had it hard in our own way. But to know about you? To know all I had to do was just wait for you? It would have changed everything, Q. You have changed everything, from the very start.”

Eliot feels like he’s run a marathon by the time he’s gotten it out—and also that he may have made zero to little sense. But Quentin just inhales, puppy dog eyes on full blast, like Eliot actually did a whole romcom speech. He makes a little whimper, kissing Eliot as much as he can, as he holds his cup between their bodies. Eliot has finished his coffee—or maybe he hasn’t, but either way, he couldn’t give less of a shit about his coffee, so he pulls Quentin’s face to his and _finally_ kisses him the way he’s wanted to… since he kissed him this way this morning. For months. For years.

Actually, Quentin’s mulled wine gets cold, and needs to be thrown away, because it gets forgotten in the moment they take to make out a little—somewhat tearfully—exchanging _I love yous_ and _I love you so muches_ in low voices, in between kisses. It’s a little embarrassing. It’s dreadfully corny. Margo would fake-vomit, loudly, in their laps if she were with them. But it’s really nice, so Margo can shut up actually.

They take a little walk in the park then, stopping by a lake that’s only just crusted over with ice, getting distracted again as Quentin has to kiss Eliot some more because, quote, “You look—so fucking good in this coat, fuck.”

(9. Quentin, saying Eliot look so fucking good in this coat, _fuck_.)

Eliot gets it. It _is_ a nice coat. So’s Quentin’s – he doesn't think he’s ever seen it before, but he looks hot in it. It’s shorter than Eliot’s, a fitted little brown suede and fleece number, so Eliot can look at and squeeze his ass a little. He’s expecting a little protest from Quentin, because they’re very much in public, and there’s very much a lot of people around, but Quentin whines, pushing up on his tiptoes. Eliot slides his hand over his jaw and neck, under his scarf, to feel Quentin shiver and press closer.

“I think you’re wrong,” he says, pulling away to delicately mouth at Quentin’s exposed throat.

“ _Shit, El—_ what?”

“About me,” Eliot says, nipping at his bottom lip. “Knowing what you want. What you need. I think you should tell me. Just to be sure.”

“ _Eliot_.”

“I want you to tell me,” Eliot says again, which is more truthful. He wants to hear it. “Tell me what you need, honey. Gorgeous boy.”

“I want—I want to go home, El,” he says on a tight breath. He twines his arms around Eliot’s neck. “I want you to take me home and not leave our bed for hours.”

 _Our bed_. Their bed. Their bed their bed their bed.

“And what exactly is going to be happening on this bed of ours?”

“ _Eliot_ ,” Quentin complains.

“Do you want me to take my time with you,” Eliot whispers, because fuck, what if people are listening? But actually— _let_ them fucking listen, let them listen to Eliot know _exactly_ what his baby needs, “open you up nice and slow and proper? Or should I put you in my lap and let you fuck into my fist so it’s messy and fast? Or what if I just kiss you and kiss you and grind against you until you’re begging for it? Huh, Q? Which one, baby?”

“Any,” Quentin cries. He’s barely kissing Eliot because his mouth is open and panting. He can feel Quentin’s legs trembling, like his knees are going to give out. “God, Eliot, any of it, just _take me home_.”

Eliot smiles. “Oh, my mistake. I guess I did know.”

*

It’s a twitchy subway ride back. Now that he’s worked Quentin up, he’s delightfully grabby. He’s shy about going as far as openly making out with Eliot in public, but he presses himself into Eliot’s front when they’re on the train, then into his side when they’re walking. He’s probably doing a very bad job of it, but Eliot’s playing very cool, like it doesn’t drive him out of his mind to have Quentin be so openly needy.

“Yoohoo,” he calls out when they step back into the apartment. The keys clatter loud in their allocated bowl, because the other pair of keys isn’t in it. Because Julia and Kady are still out—and taken the dog with them, thank _God,_ otherwise it’s very possible Quentin’s attention would be diverted from how much Eliot fucking _wants him_.

Quentin crashes into Eliot’s back. Then, his hands clutch at Eliot’s sides and turn him round, and Eliot is being dragged down to a kiss. They stumble together out of the entrance, Eliot trying to steady them both with his hands cupping Quentin’s throat.

“Eliot you _said,_ ” Quentin says, high and tight. “You—when we were home, you said.”

“You’re right,” Eliot gasps. “I did, I said. Take off your shoes, baby, and I’ll show you, I promise.”

Quentin isn’t really listening. What he is doing is pushing Eliot, backwards, towards their room.

“ _Shoes_ ,” Eliot tries again, “we’ve—there’s _mud_ —”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Quentin says, not really pissed as much as he sobs, “I—I need it _now_ , Eliot, I can’t, I _can’t_.”

Eliot’s already managed to step out of his shoes, so really Quentin’s boots are the hurdle. One million laces. “I’ve got you,” Eliot says. “Hey, didn’t I promise? I promised, baby, baby Q, I’ve got you forever.”

Eliot bends down, and look, he’s not one for—showing off, about this shit, anymore, because the only person he ever wants to have sex with again is Quentin. So showing off is redundant, it’s about _practice_ and, well, he’s had plenty of that. He doesn’t have to worry about moves, or dexterity _but—_ he is good. He can multitask. He can be in control here. So he pulls down Quentin’s zipper, so that as he unlaces Quentin’s shoes, he can mouth at Quentin through his boxers. It’s unclear whether it’s actually provides any relief, from the desperate noises it pulls out of Quentin, but the tight grasp in Eliot’s curls feels fucking _good_.

On his way back up, once the shoes are off, Eliot hugs Quentin at his thighs, just under his perfect ass, and picks him up to carry him to the bedroom. It’s an easy hold, and his back barely complains at him about it. Quentin lets out a delightful peal of shocked giggles, right at Eliot’s ear, and starts nibbling at the lobe. His hands are full, so he uses telekinesis to fling the door open, which makes Quentin’s grip on his shoulders _tighter._

(Not unique to today’s outing but, a fucking great reminder that _10\. Quentin, as turned on as ever by Eliot using magic._ )

Eliot wants to pick up where he left off, but when he goes to his knees again, Quentin sits up from the position Eliot had lowered him onto the bed to. “No,” he says quickly, “not like—that, like you said, El, like you said before.”

“I said it three different ways before,” Eliot reminds him. “You have to pick one, then.”

“Come—come hold me,” Quentin says, feverishly, “hold me and touch me, El. Whatever way you want, as long as you do it while you hold me.”

Eliot’s lap it is then, because Eliot said to pick one, but he can kind of do one and a half. Quentin sprawls across him, cocks beautifully lined up. Eliot slides two fingers into Quentin, idly, while they rut against each other. His other hand is laced with Quentin’s, pinned to the mattress as Quentin thrusts up. They shrugged most of their clothes off, haphazardly, but their shirts are on and half-open, which shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but there’s just something about Quentin coming all over Eliot’s clothes that _very_ much appeals. Quentin’s neck is arched all the way up to the ceiling, so Eliot has to encourage as much as he bites Quentin’s jaw, finally taking them in hand. Quentin comes with a strangled cry, and indeed all over both of them. So does Eliot, when Quentin takes Eliot’s earlobe delicately between his teeth. It’s the best mess they’ve made yet, even if the magic does away with it moments after.

Quentin falls back onto Eliot’s chest, hand scratching at the hair there. It feels filthy and lazy and _masculine_. If he thinks too much about it, Eliot could be ready to go again. Probably would need some magical assistance to get all the way there, but it’s a wicked, drowsy kind of arousal, that makes him feel like he wants to _ruin_ Quentin, but also never move again.

“Hey,” he says, the idea coming to him all of a sudden, “do you wanna… take a bath?”

Quentin moans. “ _God,_ yes. I absolutely want to take a fucking bath.”

The best thing about Eliot’s room? It has an en suite. No need for Quentin to fret about running into his best friend and his best friend’s girlfriend, looking thoroughly debauched for the _second_ time that day, mere hours apart from the last time that happened. Eliot gets to enjoy Quentin pull off his shirt all the way, with no shame about being naked, as the tub fills up. His eyes trace over Quentin’s body, but it’s not… like that. It surprises him, how it doesn’t fill him with want again. Just makes him think _I love you,_ bright and true.

“Oh,” he says, inside the bathroom.

“What?” says Eliot.

“It’s small. The tub.”

Sweet boy. “I have a workaround.”

Quentin perks up. “Magic? Is there, a uh—Transfiguration spell? To temporarily—”

“Much simpler,” he says, wrapping Quentin in his arms, from behind. “An old, tried-and-true method.”

Quentin goes along with the embrace, but doesn’t seem to be catching on. He turns and looks at Eliot, expectant. Implicitly trusting.

 _Sweet boy_.

“Watch and learn, kid,” Eliot says, pecking his cheek. Then, stepping in, Eliot pushes all the way back to sit against the wall. “Tada,” he says, gesturing to the space between his legs. Honestly, he spends so much of his time there—how did he not consider Eliot’s lap?

He settles happily against Eliot’s back, climbing in carefully. The water smells like lavender, and Quentin’s plays with the foam, magically lifting and twisting it up in the air, so it swirls and swirls before it collapses back down. Eliot rests his face against Quentin’s wet nape, thinking about how it’s the last day of the year. He thinks about the rest of the year they’ve had. He thinks of what Quentin said, in the park, about not being able to have wished for this, for them together. Eliot did wish—literally, made a wish—but he agrees. This is too perfect for even him to have conjured up. He’s so lucky. He’s so lucky he’s trying not to have another panic attack about how lucky he is.

He sings instead. He still doesn’t particularly care for her _that_ much, like, objectively, but he goes for Taylor anyway, just to feel Quentin sink back against him with a pleased sigh, hands resting over Eliot’s.

After a while, the wine kicks in and makes Quentin a little sleepy, and also being back from the dead is still making Quentin a little sleepy. “I’m—just gonna, for a little,” he mumbles, voice low and hoarse, neck lolled back against Eliot’s chest, his mouth _right there_ , so Eliot kisses it, obviously. The wet slide of their mouths feels _obscene_ and yeah, Eliot who has not had wine and is not back from the dead, gets a little… excited. Again. Not anything too substantial, obviously, but that same lethargic horny feeling he had before. Quentin moans a little at the feel of his semi, pressed against him.

“Lemme,” he says, clumsily reaching behind him, but not finding Eliot’s cock, so _dear_. Eliot could cry.

“Later,” he purrs, nosing at the back of Quentin’s ear. “Later, I just want to be like this for now.”

Erections pass. If Quentin jerks him off, then it’s going to be in the bath water, and then they should probably get out after that, and much as he absolutely still wants Quentin’s hands and mouth and whatever else he gives – moving from this position? Not what he wants at all.

Quentin makes an uncertain noise, rubbing up against Eliot as a last offer – which doesn’t help his case, but Eliot stays the course.

“Later, later,” he says. “Q, do you know how long I’ve wanted to just hold you? How good it feels? God, Q, after how long I missed you... I don’t need anything else, darling. Just let me hold you. For me, okay?”

It’s an old rapport. He’s expecting Quentin to mumble a reluctant _…okay_ so that Eliot can kiss all over his sweet face, and repeat it back to him. Call and response. It feels almost like a song.

This time Quentin doesn’t sing it back. Instead, he’s been lulled to sleep by Eliot’s voice, apparently. He’s turned slightly, cheek on Eliot’s collarbone.

“I’ll choose to not take offence, I guess,” Eliot says, more to himself.

Quentin’s face screws up in a frown in his sleep. “What?”

“Nothing,” Eliot says, stretching his arms in front of him so that he can warm the water back up with magic. Quentin moans, sounding relieved. His mouth puckers into something like a kiss, but that could be accidental. Eliot chooses to interpret it as _thank you_.

“You’re welcome,” he says back.

*

Quentin doesn’t stir again until Julia and Kady come noisily through the door – Quentin leaves first, actually. Eliot doesn’t doubt that they’ve entered as loudly as possible as purpose, so their arrival doesn’t go unnoticed, in case Quentin and Eliot were… in a compromising position. Which, fair, even if, as it happens, this is as innocently as they could be found, with both of them completely naked.

As they drain the tub, Quentin gets grouchy about wasting water by taking another shower ( _we need to start doing our part for the environment,_ Eliot) but while Eliot is, “disgustingly in love with you, I draw the line at being actually gross. Also, I can’t believe you don’t condition your hair, you drive me _crazy,_ how the fuck does it _look like that_?”

“Ugh, whatever, Eliot, it doesn’t matter, it’s just _hair_.”

“ _’Just hair’_ he says, my God, are you _trying_ to make me go gray before I’m even thirty?”

“But it’s gonna look the same, I know it is. You think Julia hasn’t tried this before?”

“At least I’ll have the peace of mind. That’s reason enough for me.”

“Do I need to remind you _whose_ hair it is?”

“What’s yours is mine, angel. Now stop moving before the shampoo gets in your eyes and you blame me.”

“That’s not how the saying goes,” Quentin says brattily, but shuts his eyes. He even lets Eliot comb through his hair as the conditioner sets, while his hair is still wet.

Talking Quentin into moisturizing is a battle for another day, and he’s let Eliot do so much, that he lets it slide. For now. Throwing on some sweatpants and – Jesus – one of Eliot’s sweaters, he announces that he’s going to go help “the girls” in the kitchen (he doesn’t know why, but it’s so… cute. _“The girls”_. It’s very… Dad-Quentin). Eliot, smiling to himself, nods.

“What?” Quentin says, all suspicious. “What’s—that for?”

“Just thinking about how cute you are,” Eliot says. Honesty really _is_ the best policy. The best way to get one of his favorite Quentin reactions – a sheepish but pleased _Oh jeez_ , with a huffy roll of his eyes.

He’s still smiling as he puts on his lotion, taking their discarded clothes on the floor and folding them up as it dries. While Quentin pulls off the adorable loungewear chic vibe, Eliot would just look bedraggled. Or maybe that’s just Eliot’s personal bias – that sounds like something Quentin would say, and maybe he should let his inner Quentin silence his inner critic more often. He slips on his robe as he browses through his clothes, and Quentin comes in moments later, closing the door behind him. He rests back against it.

It’s Eliot’s turn to go, “What?” at Quentin’s smirk. “You get the cream, kitten?”

“I have something for you.” Sometimes, when Quentin is too excited, he won’t play along with Eliot’s bits nor will he roll his eyes or act unimpressed in some way.

“I can see that,” Eliot says. Quentin’s hands are _both_ behind his back. Convenient. He raises his eyebrows. “Well, go ahead. I love being spoiled.”

“It’s not like _that_ ,” Quentin says, which is very cute, because not only does he know Quentin would never get him jewels and fineries, but he wouldn’t trust him to either. Margo wouldn’t have the patience to shop with him, and Julia grew up the kind of rich that she thinks it’s all pointless. Weirdly, his best option would probably be… Josh?

Anyway.

From behind him, Quentin shows him, with flourish, a book.

“This seems more like a ‘you’ present,” Eliot teases. “You know I can’t read, baby.”

“You know, those jokes were never funny,” says Quentin, with an indignant pout. “But it’s not like that either. It’s… my book. As in, my _Book_. Alice left it here before she… left. It’s been with Julia.”

Fuck, Eliot didn’t—notice, how did he not notice the _Quentin Coldwater_ emblazoned across the book. _The_ book. The one that fell off the shelves, “freaking out” as Alice had put it, when Quentin came back.

“It’s… a loan, because keeping it forever would have some consequences, probably, but Alice agreed that I should have it for a while. At least, long enough to show you.”

“Show me what?”

“How I came back,” Quentin says. “Or, uh, _why_ , I guess is more accurate.”

“Why?” Eliot asks. His voice cracks.

Quentin shakes his head. “Just—just read it, okay. And no jokes.”

Hands trembling, Eliot takes the book from him. He smoothes his hand over the cover. So much for Quentin never getting him fineries; this – Quentin’s whole life, in words – is the most valuable thing Eliot has ever held. He nearly drops it, feeling unworthy; almost hands it back.

Instead he turns to the first page Quentin had marked for him (Jesus, is it—it is bad to doggy ear Library Books? Should they be worried?).

It’s exactly as Quentin says: it starts by describing Quentin, waking up in their little shack. Alone, and confused with being alone, but—

— _a voice, or maybe simply a feeling, compelled Quentin to go outside. Outside, where Eliot must have been, surely. And where else was there to go, but where Eliot must be? Unbeknownst to Quentin, years from now and yet at the same time, Eliot Waugh was asking for him. And where else was there to go, but where Eliot was?_

_And so, with the help of the power neither knew that they had called and answered to, the door took him not outside to the Mosaic, but to Library, where Quentin wound up face-to-face with Alice Quinn._

Who had been right. Alice had been exactly right.

Eliot looks up, with no words, feeling his eyes pool with tears. It’s—one thing to assume what had probably happened. To be told by someone who can make an educated guess. It’s another to see it written down, officially. Quentin came back for _him; because of him_. He’s here for _Eliot_.

“I—” he starts, but can’t continue, because oh God, he’s crying.

“Keep going,” Quentin says softly, his thumb brushing against Eliot’s wrist, where his pulse must be racing.

The following passages are about the coming days, which Eliot skips over, to reach the next marked section Quentin had selected for him. It was just yesterday. New Year’s Eve Eve. December 30th.

Eliot’s eyes scan through, looking for what he knows Quentin wants him to look forward, not stopping until he reaches—

_Quentin leaned up to kiss Eliot, who hesitated, but kissed him back. With it, the oldest magic, True Love’s Kiss coursed through them both, through Quentin, restoring his body and his mind as one. The power so overwhelming that he fainted, in Eliot’s embrace. But, finally, now it was complete – Love Magic had brought Quentin Coldwater out of time, and True Love’s Kiss had put him back, and back together. Balance restored. Mended._

“‘True—Love’s Kiss’?” Eliot says, voice faraway. _He’s_ far away. Is he even here right now? “It’s—like, like in a _fairytale_?”

Fuck, not only had— _Alice_ been right, but so had _Margo_. When she said it all sounded like magic— _real_ magic. Fucking _love_ magic.

 _God_ she was going to be _insufferable_ about this. Not just about being right but—she was going to make fun of Eliot _forever_.

“I mean, I have my own theories—you know my discipline is Repair of Small Objects, Minor _Mendings_ —doesn’t seem like it’d be just coincidental.” Then, understanding that’s not what Eliot meant: “Surprised that it exists? Or that it’s us?”

“Both,” Eliot says. His head feels light. “Are—aren’t you?”

“Nah,” Quentin says, with a cool shrug, but his smug, delighted little face gives him away. “I always knew.” It breaks Eliot out of his daze.

“Oh you _always knew?_ ” Eliot looms over him and Quentin’s eyes go big and interested as he cackles. “Smartypants. Can’t keep anything from you.”

Quentin exhales. “No, well… I mean, I said ‘proof of concept’, didn’t I?”

 _Oh._ “Q…” Eliot whispers.

“I meant it, El. Maybe I didn’t—know about _that_ but, also... I didn’t have to _know_ know. I felt it. I felt it then. I feel it now.”

“ _Q_ ,” Eliot says again.

“I—love you, El,” says Quentin and oh, _he’s_ crying. “I, like, _really_ love you. Even the universe agrees we belong together. The fucking _universe_ , baby.” The last part Quentin says with a giddy grin, and animated gesture of his hands that end with them curled up against Eliot’s chest.

It’s insane.

It’s absurd.

It’s—actually…

Not insane at all.

It’s absurd how _not_ absurd it is.

Jesus, it’s the only thing that makes any actual goddamn sense.

Of _course._ It’s why it was them, at the Mosaic, given the quest. It’s why they remembered, when they got back, even if they shouldn’t have. It’s why it was _Eliot_ , who _never_ signed up to be a student guide, who found himself roped into it that morning, perched on the Brakebills sign, smoking a cigarette and wondering where this little fucker was, the late first year, _Quentin Coldwater,_ the love of his _fucking life_ , according to the _universe, magic_. _The beauty of all life._ Peaches and fucking _plums_. Mother _fucker_.

It doesn’t erase the fuck-ups, the missteps and the mistakes and all the bad shit that happened. All the bad shit _Eliot_ did. But it _does_ take away all the stupid, useless guilt wedged in Eliot’s ribs. That getting it right, finally, wasn’t a stroke of luck, or a fluke.

“We did it,” is all he can think of to say. “We—we made it. Here. And it wasn’t—against all odds, we were always— _always—_ ”

“Always,” Quentin agrees. His lovely bow mouth is pulling down. “ _Always_ , El, _baby_.”

“ _Q_ ,” Eliot says, “I’m—you’re—”

 _This isn’t going to go away,_ Eliot thinks, overcome _. Because it’s_ supposed _to happen._ He doesn’t have to live on edge. He doesn’t have to do anything but be here, and love Quentin. And kiss him. And kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, even as their faces are wet and salty with their tears.

“I don’t, um,” Quentin pants, “I don’t want you to stop what you’re doing but, Julia and—they’re kind of waiting for, uh, _us_.”

“I just found out you and I literally invented love.” And God forbid anyone try to correct him on that. Quentin, dedicated pedant that he is, doesn’t look like he’s about to, eyes wide and dark and hungry. “And you expect me to _not_ fuck you about it?”

“Make love,” Quentin corrects, a pleased little smile on his face as he’s making Eliot’s stupid, cheesy joke. Sweetly cupping Eliot’s jaw. God, Eliot _loves him_. Then, serious, voice hitching with something vulnerable and real: “It—when we do it, it always feels like love.”

For all his protesting, Quentin doesn’t exactly slow things down when Eliot kisses him once more, pouring all of himself into it. Quentin goes up on his tiptoes again, for no reason, because Eliot is already ducking down to balance out the height difference. He keeps going up and up, like he’s floating away, arms wrapped around Eliot’s neck and hair. 

Eliot wants to _blow his mind,_ but shit, he’s not wrong, Julia and Kady—

“Okay,” Eliot concedes, panting, “Fine. I see your point. I’m not above a quickie. Desperate times and all that.” And he’s pretty fucking desperate. He needs to be _inside him_ , fucking _now_. He undoes the knot in Quentin’s sweatpants. “Small compromise to make, seeing as you’re stuck with me forever.”

“Not stuck,” Quentin says, all earnestness. He shakes his head. “I’m lucky, El. I can’t wait to be with you forever, all over again. And to do it right this time. No bullshit. We have nothing to be embarrassed or afraid of.”

“What do _you_ have to be afraid of?” Eliot says softly. “You’ve always been so brave. The brave one. Of us, _all_ of us, but especially you and me. I owe you everything, baby. _We_ do.”

“Shut up,” Quentin says, but not with the same heat Eliot would expect. “There’s—that’s not what I want. I don’t want either of us to… owe anything. This isn’t—I don’t want _debt_ from you, Eliot. I just want you. The you who brought me back because you loved me so much; the you who raised a son with me; the you that shot a monster to keep me with me; the you who told me I was late and introduced me to my new life. All of you.”

He lets out a shivery breath, while Eliot is still, uh, taking all of that in, fucking hell. “Let me—let me show you, okay?” he says, suddenly urgent. “Can you let me show you?”

 _But_ I’m _supposed to,_ Eliot thinks, a little mournfully. But—shit, it sparks up something older in him. Back in their old age (God, that’s a confusing sentence and sentiment), when Eliot remembers feeling something close to _sureness_. He wasn’t constantly fucking Quentin as a way to prove something to him, and then himself – _I can love you, I can do it, I promise_. Instead, he let Quentin give himself to Eliot. This soft, tender boy, who wanted to be good, and wanted to be told he was good. But who wanted to have to _ask,_ to _beg_. The boy who _begged_ him, somehow even further back, in Margo’s room, because begging meant you were allowed; meant you _earned_ it. And Quentin loves quests. Rewards. _Earning_ things.

“Why don’t you show me, then,” Eliot says, with more gentleness in his voice than is probably… appropriate, or something. He brushes his thumb against Quentin’s cheek. “Sweet boy, show me. Love me, please.”

Eyes closed, Quentin swallows. Turns his head to kiss Eliot’s thumb, then goes to his knees, dragging his hands down Eliot’s body. He doesn’t open his eyes again until he’s undone the knot in Eliot’s robe, and has his mouth on him.

It’s different to this morning—and God, how was it just this morning? It feels… longer. Just the… emotional growth since then. That’s what’s different from this morning. Quentin has that same sharp focus to bringing Eliot to orgasm – he’s such a lovely cocksucker that way; the absolute best, though that might be the soulmate bias talking – but it feels like being broken apart and slotted back into place. The tight heat of Quentin’s mouth, so dear and so familiar, anchoring him as he feels like he’s floating away on pure feeling. Where before Quentin was determined, now he’s devoted. He watches Eliot with hunger, but generosity too. Giving him permission to let go.

So Eliot…

Does.

“Oh, holy fuck,” he gasps out, and shit, they didn’t put up a ward, did they? Did they? He definitely didn’t. Did Quentin? Does it even fucking matter – Julia and Kady can’t exactly imagine they’re playing _Monopoly_ in here. “Jesus, Quentin, baby. You’re so good.”

There’s no other word for it. Quentin is loving him. Loves him. Loves him. And when Eliot falls apart, he’s there, to put him back together, and makes Eliot feel brand new.

*

Still anxious about _the girls_ waiting for them to help them with putting the groceries away and setting up for the night, it’s a bit of a negotiation to get Quentin to agree to Eliot to return the favor, but they manage to get there.

“You’re telling me you don’t want me to pin your hands above your head and blow you against the door? You’re saying you _don’t_ want that?”

“How would that even work? Like, logistically.” Quentin says it snottily, like he thinks he’s won some sort of argument. The argument of not getting to come. Ugh. Eliot loves him so much. 

“Telekinesis, baby.”

“…All right, but make it fast.”

It was a crime to ask Eliot to rush his methods, but, again, they had prior plans, so Eliot gets it. Anyway, what matters is making Quentin come, noisily and brokenly crying out, and then the sweet kisses and rubbing of noses that come after, as Quentin shivers and shivers until he’s held close for long enough that it subsides.

When they leave their room, Julia and Kady must be playing a little _Monopoly_ of their own, because they’re no longer in the living room or kitchen either. There’s still a few hours before they should order food, and Eliot’s been talked out of making thorough love to his soulmate, so he says, “Do you, uh, wanna watch a movie?” as the first thing that comes to mind, to pass the time.

Quentin looks… startled. “Uh, sure.”

Eliot laughs. “Well, we don’t have to. If you don’t want.”

“No! I do, I just… isn’t it weird that we haven’t done that? Ever?”

“Huh. Are you sure?”

“No definitely not, not even… in the early days of my first year. Before, you know, everything.”

“ _Really?_ ” 

“Why is that so weird to you? I don’t remember the Cottage exactly hosting many movie nights.”

“I just mean, it’s surprising because I would have taken any opportunity to spend alone time with you and maybe get to feel you up.”

“…charming, Eliot.”

“I had a crush on you! It’s not gross, it’s romantic!”

“…sure.” Said with a cheeky chew of his lip.

He kisses Quentin for that, and it makes Quentin look even cheekier. 

“All right.” Eliot claps his hand together. “First movie we watch together. What should it be?”

Quentin’s eyes shine bright, the way he does when faced with a _task_. God he’s a delight. And they get to do this forever. Just hang out. Eliot’s always loved hanging out with Quentin, and now he gets to do _that_ and kiss him and hold him, whenever he wants. Jackpot. 

“Okay, do you wanna—should we break down our favorite movies? Or, something neither of us has watched? Maybe it would also make sense to break down by, hm, I guess genre? But there’s also directors to consider.”

“Mm. Favorites.”

Quentin nods. “So—what’s your favorite movie?” He looks more excited, like he can’t wait to gain this new bit of Eliot trivia.

“ _Dirty Dancing_ ,” he says, which used to be an answer he was embarrassed about giving, but obviously never would he feel embarrassed about telling Quentin. Also—fuck it, it’s a masterpiece.

“Oh,” Quentin breathes out, considering Eliot with an amused frown.

“What?”

“Nothing I just… I guess I wasn’t expecting that answer.”

“Why?”

“I guess if someone—asked me what your favorite movie was, I would have chosen something… artsy. But that also makes sense too, you know, given the coronation.”

“Dance is an art, Quentin.”

Quentin rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. I was thinking like… something moody and foreign. Less… Saturday afternoon, feel-good family fun.”

“Hm, don’t think I’ve painted an accurate picture of my family if you think that’s the kind of thing I’d be allowed to watch. It’s called _Dirty Dancing_ , Q. Also there’s like, abortion in it.”

Quentin scoffs. “Well, I don’t know! I’ve never seen it!”

“ _What?_ ” Eliot gapes at him. Quentin shrugs as if that wasn’t a completely fucked up thing he had just uttered. Never seen _Dirty Dancing_. Eliot needs to have a talk with Julia. “Well, that settles what movie then.”

“Hey!” Quentin says, but it’s mock-outrage. He dives for the remote. “Don’t I get a say? You didn’t ask me my favorite.” 

Eliot runs his gaze across Quentin’s body, looming slightly over his. “Gonna make a truly bold claim here and say it’s a _Star War._ ”

Sitting back on his heels, Quentin glares at him. “Which one?” he says, a dare, pointy chin going up. 

Eliot sighs dramatically. This is an old game of theirs, and Eliot knows all the tricks. “Baby, I don’t know the names, they’re not as culturally important as _Dirty Dancing._ ”

Quentin splutters. Bingo. “That’s—even if that could be measured objectively, you’re saying a multi-movie franchise spanning _decades_ has less cultural cache than _one_ single dancing movie.”

“ _Dirty Dancing_ has a sequel. It’s set in Cuba.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You ready to be educated?” Eliot says, teasing, about to load the movie up.

“I guess,” Quentin sighs, falling back into the couch cushions.

“Sweetheart, I’m teasing, we don’t have to.”

Quentin frowns. “What? No, put it on.”

“Quentin, I’m not _actually_ going to force you to watch it.”

He looks even more bewildered. “Eliot, I want to watch it.”

“Really?”

“It’s important to you, so I should have at least some experience of it rather than just knowing random quotes through osmosis.”

It’s so—stupid cute. Jesus. He’s so cute. “I—” Eliot says, blinking. “Okay. If you’re—sure.”

Quentin looks very pleased. “Oh, did I just charm you a little?”

“Don’t ruin it by being smug,” Eliot says, pursing his lip to hide his smile.

“But I did,” Quentin presses. “I charmed you just now.”

“God, look at you. What have I done,” Eliot deadpans. Quentin hums, content, and snuggles into Eliot’s side. The puppy, blissfully napping until now, jumps up to nestle between them when eventually the noise of the movie wakes him up. Annoyingly, that charms Eliot too. 

“I’m such a softie now,” Eliot remarks, tousling the dog’s little ears. “Like, I shouldn’t let him on the couch. But I am. Because I’m so soft. What would Margo say?” 

“You were always pretty soft,” Quentin says drily. 

“Hey, bite your tongue. I’m not the one who let our son _eat cake for breakfast._ ” It hurts less, to talk about Teddy’s early years. The reminder that eventually he grew up into a man, and that missing him doesn’t have to mean mourning him. There’s a small moment where Quentin looks wistful, but it’s replaced with a happy shrug.

“Well, duh,” Quentin says, “I’m a softie too.” 

“It’s how I like you anyway,” Eliot says softly, running his finger down Quentin’s nose. 

Quentin scrunches it up happily. “Ditto.” Then, turning back to the screen: “This _is_ a lot darker than I was expecting.” 

“Yeah, but there’s a happy ending.” 

“Mm. Good.”

“Yeah.” 

*

As the credits roll, Julia strolls down the stairs. She nods at both of them in greeting, but goes to the kitchen area. Pressing a kiss to Quentin’s temple, who’s already busying himself cooing at the puppy, Eliot gets up to follow her.

For all her bitching, Kady did buy a pretty decent wine. Eliot’s opening and tasting it when Julia finishes drinking her water and sidles up next to him. Like Quentin, she’s opted for a cozier New Year’s look - a soft-looking cardigan and sweatpants that he’s pretty sure are Kady’s. 

“You look… _happy_ ,” he says pointedly. Julia’s hair is more than a little messy, her cheeks flushed and she’s wearing that lovely smile she has; the one that looks like she can’t even help doing. 

“So do you,” she gives back. She bumps her hip against his, and flushes and smiles some more as tucks her hair behind her ears, clearing her throat. He sees Quentin in it, and his heart does a thing about it. A little fond, excited leap. It means something to see the ways in which they’re similar, part of each other. Makes him feel a little part of it too.

Maybe that’s another part of loving someone. When you have them, you get to gain all the people they love as well.

Without asking, she takes his glass and sips the wine, also just a taste. Then, she looks up at Eliot with a pleased hum as she hands it back to him, expectant, like she wants confirmation that it’s good, like his opinion matters to her, and Eliot is overcome.

“Hey, um,” he says. He puts it back down on the counter carefully, focusing his gaze there for a moment and then turning back to her. With a bend at his knees, he puts both arms around her back, his hold delicate. So she has the space to pull away. And because she’s so small, smaller than Quentin even, and his love for her in that moment is so strong that he feels he might break her if he doesn’t stop himself. “Thank you. For the Book.”

Julia laughs. “Eliot,” she breathes. He shudders as her arms go around his neck. “Are you kidding? Did you read it? I should be thanking _you_.”

She steps back. Still in his embrace, but looking in his eyes. “You got him back for us.” Unshed tears twinkle at him. “You and your—your _heart_. I hope you’re able to see—what Q sees now. What Margo sees. What _I_ see. I mean, _true love,_ Eliot. You’re _literally_ a prince fucking charming.”

“Not sure if that’s a downgrade from High King,” he says with no wryness whatsoever, throat tight.

Julia points a finger at him. “No conversational diversions!” she says. “Not with me, sucker. But,” she smiles, “it’s definitely an upgrade, if you ask me. Look at what you get.”

From over her head, Quentin is making the puppy dance in his lap, lifting his paws up and humming along to ‘Time of Your Life’, off-key in that nonsensically charming way of his. He catches Eliot looking at him, smiling instantly. He makes the puppy wave at them. Julia scoffs, saying, “God,” with a giggle.

“Julia Wicker, the Wise,” he says, kissing the side of her head. Look at what he gets indeed.

*

Quentin does really well. He manages to stay up through all the conversation, up to midnight, even if he starts to blink long and slow, because, again, _wine_. The ball drops, and Julia kisses Kady, a little shy, but with a long, happy gaze after. Eliot’s kiss with Quentin is quick too, because he’s too sleepy for anything else, but when Eliot pulls away, Quentin beams at him, dreamy and squinty.

He leans heavily into Eliot’s chest as Julia and Kady convince Eliot to start playing ‘Never Have I Ever’ (which takes a lot because, um, Eliot is a kept man now, dwelling on the past is for people who don’t have soulmates confirmed by the universe, thanks so much). But he indulges them in the less sexual, more Margo adventures ones (again, not easy to comb through his memories for Margo adventures that _aren’t_ sexual but not impossible, he’s a hedonist of all sorts). Eventually Quentin’s breathing fans softer against his shirt, and Eliot looks down to find him asleep.

“Well, 2020 will still be 2020 in a few hours,” Julia says, and Eliot catches her watching Quentin as well.

“What? No, come on, Eliot, you were just getting to the good part,” Kady says, sitting up from where she had her head in Julia’s lap, but she’s slurring her words. Despite this, she only grumbles a little when Julia hushes her and tugs her to a feet. Julia gives Eliot one last, scrunchy-nose smile as she guides Kady out, leaving the two of them alone.

Eliot sits in the quiet. A few days ago, he was in this same spot, but he was not the same at all. Even now, he’s not the same as he was before Quentin was gone. It’s all so different. One of his new, most treasured people is a girl he first met because the boy he had a crush on was yelling at her in the street about how he had had a crush on her. There’s a puppy asleep on his foot, that they still haven’t named as far as he knows, but he knows Quentin probably has a million ideas. Quentin, snoring ever so quiet, perfect and warm and dear. Everything Eliot asked for, and everything he had no words to do the asking for, which is exactly what Quentin has been, for Eliot, from the start. It’s a Christmas Miracle. It’s real magic. It’s True Love.

For once, waking Quentin up isn’t a hardship. Just one gentle shake of his shoulders and he’s jerking awake, blinking up at Eliot. “Hi,” he says, “what, um, hi?”

 _Holy shit_ , Eliot thinks, because he is so cute. “Do you wanna go to bed?” His fingers walk up and down Quentin’s arm.

“Do, um, you?” Quentin rubs his eyes.

“Yeah,” Eliot says, even though it doesn’t really matter, if he’s here on the couch or on the bed or on the fucking moon. But yeah, sure, bed wins out if only because it won’t leave Eliot’s back fucked up in the morning.

“Okay,” Quentin says around a yawn. “Will you—um, Toby?”

“Who?”

That gets him a very cute glare. “The _dog_ , Eliot, that’s his name.”

“It is?” _Toby._ How’d he miss that? “That’s not a very good dog name.”

“You’re not a very good dog name.”

“That’s true,” Eliot says. “’Eliot’ is too regal, obviously. Too dignified for a creature that needs to be taken outside to shit.”

“What are you even saying,” Quentin grumbles against his chest. There he is, sleepy Q.

“Nothing at all, sweetheart.” He stands, the action waking Quentin up again, who looks up, taking Eliot’s extended hand with bleary trust, and filling Eliot will tenderness, that he will go whenever Eliot makes him. _Where else is there to go_ , Eliot thinks.

He puts the dog in his bed, which he imagines is what Quentin was asking. The apartment is almost pitch-black. The windows are charmed so that the street lights don’t flood in. Right before their door, Eliot, despite his careful steps, Quentin trips on something, almost sending them both flying as Quentin holds onto him, but Eliot catches the doorframe and keeps them steady.

“Fuck,” Eliot swears under his breath, “I’m sorry, I can’t see _shit—_ ”

Quentin is snickering, and it’s not really mean-spirited, but Eliot still says, “Well, you’re _welcome_ for saving your _life_ ,” haughtily, like Quentin’s laughter isn’t entirely infectious, isn’t making him crack up as well.

“Oh my God, _shut up_ ,” Eliot says, on the verge of hysteria, in a shout-whisper, “Julia and Kady are _asleep._ ”

Quentin’s shoulders shake as he pushes his face into Eliot’s shoulder, presumably to muffle himself, but it doesn’t seem like it works, to Eliot it still sounds so fucking _loud_. And fuck, Eliot can’t stop either. Even the dog marches over, indignant, and fucking yaps at them. Eliot tries to push him away with his foot but Quentin admonishes him.

“Don’t kick him!”

“I’m not _kicking,_ I’m _gently nudging_ , but he won’t fucking _take the hint._ ”

“Goodnight Toby,” Quentin coos down at him, reaching down to pet him. Jesus, _Toby_.

“We’re having a house meeting about that in the morning.”

Back at the Mosaic, when they started to share a bed and before they’d starting having sex again, Quentin would sleep as far on the edge of the as possible, curled up in a ball. It still happened on occasion when they were sleeping together, if Quentin went to bed first. It’s how Eliot finds Quentin on their bed when he’s done with his skincare routine.

“You know, this is _exactly_ why I thought you weren’t into me. Look at how little of the bed you’re taking up! It’s like you to avoid touching me at all costs.”

Quentin stretches, moaning a little. “Well, maybe I’m just making room for you. Ever thought of that?”

Which… sounds about right, with their history. Quentin, making room; Eliot, being too dumb to figure out that’s what he’s doing.

“Guess not,” Eliot says, fondly watching as Quentin smiles smugly, eyes still closed.

Tomorrow, Quentin will bitch about the takeout cartons being left out, and the food waste they could have saved on, and it’ll be another lecture about the state of the planet (and “leaving it better for their children”, which will make Eliot misty), but he'll trail off when Eliot kisses him, just a little, and then smile the rest of the time they're cleaning up. Then, at some point in the day, probably the middle of the afternoon because who cares, Eliot will finally ask Quentin if he can rim him, and they’ll probably both cry a little when Eliot fucks into him again. They’ll walk the dog, and _should_ stop into Trader Joe’s when they do because they’re out of the three different kinds of milk the fridge has to be stocked with at all times (Julia and Kady like oat, and so does Quentin, but only the one with the recyclable bottle, which Kady says tastes funky). On the route, Quentin will insist Toby is a fine name for a dog and Eliot will rattle off other mundane names like Steve and David and Jonathan just to rile him up. He’ll make dinner for Julia and Kady and Quentin (there’s some fancy pasta sauce in their pantry he’s had his eye on) and send a rabbit for Margo even if she won’t manifest for another few days, so she can reunite with Quentin again, and he’ll even tell her she was right, the bitch, about everything, the whole time. And he’ll finish telling tonight’s story, for Kady, and Quentin will cover his smile with his hands.

But now, in the wee hours of the New Year, Eliot just gets into bed next to Quentin. Into the space Quentin made, just for him.

It’s maybe morning when he jerks awake, with that groggy, awful feeling when you know you just had a weird dream. He hopes it’s just weird. He’s had too many nightmares. He also hopes it’s not morning, because he definitely needs more sleep.

“Eliot,” Quentin says as the bed dips with him turning over. He can hear the patting of Quentin’s hands on the mattress, trying to find him. “Where’m you?”

Eliot hushes him, a hand on Quentin’s neck to soothe him. To show him where he is; to guide him closer. Quentin sighs, whole body going loose.

“Right here, love,” he says, even though Quentin’s probably asleep again. “Right here.”

Where else?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND THERE IT IS. a million years late: sappy christmas fic. tysm for reading and being patient. i'm not done with these two, so absolutely count on me still being around to write more happy endings (it's all i know how to do)

**Author's Note:**

> part 2 coming soon!! i was going to post all in one go, but it's a lot to digest, emotionally i think lmao so i wanted to get this chunk out of the way so we can enjoy the good stuff as one thing. it's practically done, i promise!! so is my other WIP.


End file.
